Fixed It: A murdered woman is not a bathtub

News.com.au reported on the sentencing hearing for the man who murdered 19yo Arnima Hayat, who was pregnant with his child.

Arnima Hayat was a bright and gifted medical student. She was the beloved daughter of Mahafuza Akter and Abu Hayat, who told the court they are destroyed by Arnima’s murder.

“There is no joy, no laughter, only suffering and pain,” Mahafuza Akter told the court. She said Arnima was “stolen” not only from the family, but from the thousands of people she would have helped as a “wonderful medical doctor”.

The article reports “Crown prosecutor Fiona Gray emphasised that the letter of apology ‘does not afford Arnima Hayat of using her name’ and instead refers to her as ‘my wife’. She argued his inability to recognise Ms Hayat’s value outside of her connection to him reflects his ‘possessive and controlling’ conduct throughout their relationship.”

Then they erased Arnima Hayat from the headline and referred to her as his wife five times in the article.

News.com.au reported it as a “rocky relationship” and described it as “marked by turbulence” because police had taken out an AVO against the man who eventually killed Arnima. The SMH (under another “acid bath killer” headline) reported that he had strangled her to unconsciousness “because he thought he had seen her with another man”.

This is not a rocky or turbulent relationship. This is a controlling, abusive, violent and dangerous man. Strangulation and coercive control in intimate relationships are setting the stage for murder.

Minimising and sensationalising Arnima’s husband’s violence is not just inaccurate. According to Counting Dead Women Australia, 66 women have been killed so far this year. Almost all of them were allegedly killed by men they knew.

In the middle of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence, as we come to the end of a horrific year of violent men hurting and killing women, this reporting is stupid, dangerous, staggeringly irresponsible, and utterly inexcusable.