In the months before her death by immolation, Sadif Karimi repeatedly engaged the Victorian domestic violence service Safe Steps.
“Sadif was treated the exact same way that a rich white woman would have been treated if she called in for help,” a source tells Martin McKenzie-Murray. “But Sadif couldn’t speak English. She had no support network, no system at all that could help her. She was put into emergency accommodation with her baby and left to rot.”
Safe Steps is one of three Australian services that field calls to 1800Respect, the national domestic violence counselling hotline. The organisation was given the contract last year after the group that previously handled the calls refused to renew its subcontract with government.
“I’m sympathetic to the Rapid team,” another source says. “They are so under the pump. They have a manager standing behind them clapping in their ears to get them off phone calls quicker. Management has made it that Rapid can only care about answering a phone call – it doesn’t matter what kind of service you give, as long as that call is answered, you’re doing your job.”
Plus: Mike Seccombe on US philanthropy and the Ramsay Centre, Paul Bongiorno on the government’s energy wars, and Santilla Chingaipe on Indigenous players and the AFL …
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