Reclaim the Night at The Entrance

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The first-ever Reclaim the Night event on the NSW Central Coast is taking place at The Entrance Memorial Park on Friday, 13 October, 2023.

Vice President of the Central Coast Domestic Violence Committee Inc (CCDVC), Ms Sharon Walsh, said it was a distressing statistic that the Central Coast had the highest rates of sexual assault of any local government area in NSW in 2022.

“They are only the cases that are notified to the police and that equals 410 cases,” Ms Walsh said.

She said whilst the core business of CCDVC is family and domestic violence, sexual assault was definitely a category within that but also an issue of importance because “women and girls have the right to feel safe everywhere and at any time.”

“If the Central Coast tops the list for sexual violence in NSW then CCDVC has a role to play in addressing that issue. The word nobody wants to mention anymore is rape. It is too violent. It makes people feel uncomfortable,” she said.

So, while domestic and family violence are now being acknowledged, there’s still a way to go for rape and sexual assault to be addressed.

“It is hard for people to deny that domestic and family violence is happening now but people do deny that sexual assault is a problem,” she said.

The Reclaim the Night event at Memorial Park, The Entrance, is being held by CCDVC in collaboration with the NSW Police and Mounties Group.

The first Reclaim the Night event was held in the Belgian capital city, Brussels, in the 1970s and involved women and girls marching after dark to claim their right to be safe on the streets after dark as part of the broader women’s liberation movement.

The first British event was held in 1977 and then Sydney and Perth had their first marches in 1978.

Walsh said Reclaim the Night has had a chequered life and timeline with a backlash and major events like COVID preventing the celebrations at some points during the past 50 years.

CCDVC is aiming for a community-friendly event at The Entrance with market stalls, food trucks and live entertainment.

October is sexual violence awareness month.

Reclaim the Night will run from 6pm to 8pm at Memorial Park The Entrance on Friday 13 October 2023

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