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Today is International Women’s Day, an important milestone.
Like a real-life milestone it is an opportunity for us to consider the road already travelled, where we currently are and the road that lies ahead of us.
We have come a long way in the battle for women’s equality since the first International Women’s Day in 1911, but the reality is that, today, the issue of violence against women and girls is one of the greatest societal challenges facing not just Northern Ireland, but the world.
Let me focus in on our part of the world first.
In the last five years, 25 women have been killed in Northern Ireland.
Every one of those deaths is a tragedy and every single victim had a unique and precious life that was ended early and violently.
The friends, families and loved ones of those victims will have experienced a grief that is hard to comprehend, never mind put into words.
We see the reality of the violence that women and girls experience everywhere.
Day in, day out there are reports in the media of domestic abuse.
Social media is awash with misogynistic content, our young people are exposed to toxic, harmful content that twists their minds.
Strong, confident, competent women like Diane Forsythe and Cara Hunter have their images distorted with deepfake technology in horrendous ways for having the audacity of seeking to serve their community as elected representatives.
Charities that provide services to women who have become victims of crime, especially sexual crime, are screaming out that we need to do more.
Sir Mark Rowley, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, last year described violence against women and girls as endemic, systemic and a threat to society on the same scale as terrorism.
To steal a metaphor that sound you can hear is not a smoke alarm chirping, it is the roaring clamour of a roof collapsing as the fire tears through our house.
With the world as it is, it is easy to feel helpless.
But we have to remember how far we have come and how much potential we truly have.
And we must look at doing what we can, where we can. Because there are opportunities to make things better.
For one thing we have seen the introduction of specific legislation around non-fatal strangulation, downblousing and upskirting and coercive control, crimes that are incredibly gendered.
Next year the Justice Minister in Northern Ireland will introduce legislation to deal with the issue of the disclosure of third-party private material, including counselling notes, of victims of crime.
From my office’s own research I have found that the disclosure of third-party private information is an issue that disproportionately effects victims of sexual crime, especially female victims of sexual crime.
This law won’t fix every problem females face in our world, but it will mean the world to all of those victims who came to me and told me they had to choose between healthcare and justice.
It will mean everything to victims in the future who will be able to seek justice without fearing their most intimate information that is irrelevant to the case will be seen by anyone else.
There are other reasons to be hopeful. There is a head of steam building up against the use of good character references at the sentencing part of trials.
Far too often we have heard of convicted criminals parading statements from a crowd of their “respectable” mates talking about what good fellows they really are.
They serve no purpose but to further damage the criminal’s victims and I am hopeful that we are seeing the beginning of a concerted campaign to end their use.
The conversation around how victims of domestic abuse and children who have been present in a home where domestic abuse has happened is also crucially developing.
Again, this is an issue that overwhelmingly affects women.
Anecdotally I have heard gut-wrenching horror stories about the experience these women have had in our family courts. My office’s research into this issue will be published later this year.
I don’t wish to pre-empt the findings of that report or the recommendations made, but we have the opportunity to make this a catalyst for change.
The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is #AccelerateAction.
One of my abiding frustrations since taking up this role is the slow pace at which things often seem to move.
I hope that our elected leaders and senior decision makers take the #AccelerateAction message to heart and endeavour to address the issue of violence against women and girls with the urgency it requires.
Last year the Executive launched the strategic framework to end violence against women and girls, and while this is to be welcomed, the truth is that it needs to be much better resourced.
More recently we have seen the Programme for Government and while it’s welcome that there is a priority on ending violence against women and girls, we have to make sure that this is properly resourced.
At its most extreme violence against women and girls ends in preventable deaths. If we are truly genuine in our commitment to address this issue, all our departments and in particular our justice system, need to receive the necessary funding commitment and cross-party support to ensure that our systems and responses are fit for purpose.
In the last twenty years, we have seen billions of pounds poured into our efforts against terrorism.
If we are to meet one of the greatest challenges of our generation, it will not take just strategies or frameworks.
It will take resources, it will take political will and it will take courage.
On International Women’s Day, I am hopeful that those who are in positions of power and influence rise to that challenge.