Floral tributes left at the scene on Cranbrook Road in Ilford, east London, where Zara Aleena, 35, was murdered on in the early hours of Sunday. PA Photo. Picture date: Wednesday June 29, 2022. Jordan McSweeney, of Church Elm Lane, Dagenham, east London, is accused of killing Ms Aleena as she walked home from a night out. See PA story COURTS Ilford. Photo credit should read: Ted Hennessey/PA Wire
In the early hours of Sunday morning, Zara Aleena, a 35-year-old aspiring lawyer was robbed, sexually assaulted and killed a 10-minute walk from her home (Picture: PA)

It’s a infrequent occurrence, they said, when Sarah Everard was murdered by a stranger in March 2021.

The then-Met Police Chief, Cressida Dick, said it was ‘incredibly rare’ for a woman to be taken from our streets and killed.

While her words may have been intended to reassure, they read like a minimisation of the fears felt by women across the country. 

Women who know what it feels like to be followed down a dark alley late at night; women who know the feeling of cold metal between our fingers as we prepare our house keys to be used as a defence weapon.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Zara Aleena, a 35-year-old aspiring lawyer was robbed, sexually assaulted and killed a 10-minute walk from her home.

When my editor emailed me to suggest I write about Zara Aleena for my column this week, I am ashamed to admit that I hadn’t a clue who she was referring to. 

As someone who campaigns for women’s safety and speaks out against male violence, my news alerts and social media follows are curated to alert me to cases like Zara’s, but still I had heard nothing. 

I googled her name and was saddened to see yet another ‘rare’ case of a woman being attacked and killed by a male stranger on the street.

Why isn’t Zara Aleena’s name on the tip of all of our tongues? Have we become so desensitised by yet another senseless murder of a woman whose only crime was trying to make it home?

How can such a crime be both ‘incredibly rare’ and yet so common that the press are seemingly experiencing femicide fatigue and aren’t covering such stories with the same vigour as we did with the case of Sarah Everard?

Zara Aleena
We cannot accept that such cases are rare, (Picture: PA/LNP)

Why wasn’t Zara’s face on the front page of every newspaper across the country? Has society lost their interest in women killed at the hands of men?

Zara deserves the same level of outrage, column inches and public interest as the other victims whose names we have sadly learned to recite off by heart over the past couple of years. 

Brown and Black women’s names take longer to reach the public consciousness than white victims, because our society and the media still have a deeply entrenched problem with racial bias.

We cannot accept that femicide is rare, nor is in any way inevitable, because we cannot allow misogyny to win.

Content warning: This article contains sensitive information that may be distressing.

Zara Aleena is one of at least four women in Greater London alone who will have read about the murder of Sarah Everard before they were killed. Listened to the insistence that such cases were rare, and then went on to meet similar fates.

Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were sisters who were stabbed to death in a park on 6 June 2020 by a man who had made a pact with Satan to kill at least six women every six months in the hope of winning a multi million-pound lottery jackpot. Nicole was stabbed 28 times.

Sabina Nessa was attacked on 17 September 2021 by a man who had travelled to London with the intention of assaulting a random woman after he was spurned by his estranged wife. He picked up a metal traffic triangle and hit her over the head 34 times before strangling her and removing some of her clothes. His attack was sexually motivated.

Sabina Nessa
Sabina Nessa was attacked on 17 September 2021 (Picture: PA)

In Ireland, on January 12, 23-year-old primary school teacher Ashling Murphy was attacked, strangled and killed as she went for a jog in the afternoon.

On July 30 last year, my friend’s sister, Shanae Brooke Edwards, was murdered by a man while she went for a hike in Tbilisi, Georgia. Her friends expressed dismay over the lack of press coverage that Shanae’s murder garnered, as well as the lack of pressure placed upon Georgian authorities in their investigation of the crime.

Though these women were murdered at the hands of different men, men whom they had never met, they were all killed by the same thing – misogyny. 

When will the police, the press, the prosecutors and the public accept that every murder, every rape, every sexual assault of a woman are inextricably linked? That we should be outraged at every misogynistic crime because all women are at risk and all women deserve the right to get home safely whether it’s at night, in broad daylight, through a park, a street or canal towpath – we deserve to make it home.

Jordan McSweeney, 29, has been charged with Zara’s murder, robbery and attempted rape. It is vital that we keep Zara Aleena in our thoughts, our conversations and in our papers. 

I will leave you with the words of Zara’s family, whose tribute to her was not only dedicated to her memory, but a call to action: ‘We all need to be talking about what happened to OUR ZARA, we all need to be talking about this tragedy.

‘In a savage, sickening act she was murdered by a stranger. She’s not the only woman who has lost her life like this. 

‘In the moment of this tragedy, we extend our deepest sympathy and love to the families of Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman, Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Ashling Murphy and many more women. 

‘We must PREVENT and STOP violence against women and girls.’

Rest in Power, Zara Natasha Aleena.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk

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