The vigil was attended by Ms Aleen’s family as well as the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting
By Wendy Hurrell and Rebecca Cafe
BBC News, London
The aunt of a woman murdered in a late night attack in London has said male violence had to be confronted.
Zara Aleena, 35, was murdered as she walked home in Ilford, east London.
Jordan McSweeney, 29, has been jailed for at least 38 years after he admitted her murder and sexual assault.
Speaking at a vigil to honour Ms Aleena, Farah Naz said it was important to “not to shy away, not to look the other way, not to turn a blind eye, but to confront”.
“We are asking people to join us in this vision to see a society which confronts the issue, to see services that confront the issue, to see communities that confront the issue,” she said.
“And to ourselves as individuals, to be willing and to be able and to know how to confront it.”
Image source, Met Police
Zara Aleena was planning on being a solicitor having just graduated in law
About 150 people attended the vigil at Valentine’s Park in Ilford.
The included campaigners, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, and Wes Streeting, MP for Ilford North and shadow health and social care secretary,
All were wearing white, at the request of Ms Aleena’s family.
“This is a grieving, a public grieving, and that’s why it’s so important,” said Ms Naz.
“But it’s also important not just to grieve; it’s important to protest and that’s what this is. It’s multi-faceted; it’s saying ‘we wont have this anymore and we support this family and this community that have fallen to the ground’.
“Everybody only sees me representing the family, and that’s because my family struggle and suffer.
“The suffering is immense. We are finding a way how [to deal with the trauma] and today the community and society, the press and the leaders, they support us.”
Her aunt Farah Naz says it was important to confront the issue of violence against women and girls
London’s mayor urged people to listen to Ms Aleena’s family and said: “If we’re all honest, none of us want to be here.
“None of us want to commemorate the anniversary of a year on from Zara being brutally murdered.
“Zara’s not the first women to be brutally murdered on our streets, and you know what, she’s not the last.”
‘Systemic change’
Andrea Simon, the director of End Violence Against Women Coalition who was also at the vigil, said so many women’s organisations wanted to show their support for the community and to honour Ms Allena’s life.
“So many of these cases of women who’ve been murdered in a public space in the last few years have really impacted all of us, our perceptions of safety, and we are already making so many considerations with this threat of men’s violence in mind,” she said.
“What we really want is to stop having to do that and for there to be some accountability for men themselves, peers and friends; holding themselves to account for their behaviour and for the agencies who are supposed to keep us safe and to protect women to actually do that.”
She added they were looking for systemic change across society which acknowledged how devastating male violence can be.
“We have to look at what we’re not doing to identify those dangerous perpetrators to stop them reoffending, but also to stop violence from happening in the first place,” she added.
“We don’t have enough focus on prevention and dealing with things before they get to the stage where a woman is seriously harmed or killed.”
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