No girls were arrested, despite what this atrocious headline says. But a girl is dead. And she deserved much better than this.
Tunchanok Donhomla, who was only 17 years old, was killed on Thursday night and a 46-year-old Australian man has been charged with murder, concealment of a body, moving or destroying a body, and taking a minor aged between 15 and 18 for sexual purposes.
The front page of Sunday’s Herald Sun ran a huge headline, screaming about the “girl in the suitcase arrest”. And they flung it up next to a photo of her wearing clothes entirely appropriate for a beach (where the photo was taken) because of course they did, what would stop them objectifying a young girl who had been brutally murdered only days earlier?
If Tunchanok had been white and Australian, maybe she’d have been given the respect she deserves. Maybe. But she wasn’t, so the Herald Sun had no hesitation in sexualising, sensationalising and dehumanising her in the wake of her murder.
It’s the perfect photo of the intersection between racism and misogyny, writ large and published on the front page of the Herald Sun.
The man charged with Tunchanok’s murder reportedly recorded a message to her family in which he said, “I hope you’re OK – I know you’re not – but I hope and tell other girls just to be … careful …” Perhaps this really is how men show they care about women’s safety?
Almost all the reporting on Tunchanok’s murder mentions the suitcase in the headline, but they do at least include that an Australian man has been arrested for her murder. I was expecting a raft of dehumanising “Suitcase Murder” headlines, along the lines of the ubiquitous (and also frequently racist) “Wheelie Bin Murder” stories of the last decade.
Oh, hang on…
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