The NRL and White Ribbon Day - by Mary

Today, Australia supports White Ribbon Day.

This is a day which seeks to raise awareness for male violence against women and children. It is the world's largest male-led movement to end men's violence against women.

Through challenging attitudes and behaviours and commonly held beliefs about violence, this initiative seeks to change the culture which perpetuates men behaving violently and destructively towards women and their family.

I think we can all agree that this is a powerful message and a day which needs to be supported, spoken about and made prominent so that statements and statistics like this, can be eradicated:

• 30 per cent of women across the globe are impacted by intimate partner violence;
• in Australia, one woman a week is killed because of violence from a current or former partner;
• the Australian Institute of Criminology reports that 36 per cent of all homicides take place in a domestic setting and 73 per cent of those involve a woman being killed by their male partner; and
• ABS data shows that 1 in 3 Aussie women aged 15 and above have experienced some sort of physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives.

This needs to stop. In  a society as privileged and lucky as ours, statistics like this are not acceptable and it needs to be completely understood that this is not ok.

The NRL is a proud supporter of White Ribbon Day. There are a number of ambassadors for the cause who seek to be champions of the cause and spread the message throughout the community.

The NRL is showing its support through some of its tremendous ambassadors - Mario Fenech and Nathan Hindmarsh participated in the White Ribbon Day Walk in Sydney this morning, the Kangaroos have sworn an oath while on tour and clubs like the Parramatta Eels have also had their players supporting the cause.

This is so vitally important and each of the NRL clubs should be getting involved. At NRL HQ, today's primary messages should all be about White Ribbon Day. As a code we need to commit to this cause and show leadership. The players, administrators and governing bodies of our game need to stand together and show support for this tremendous cause. It is a message which should not only be heavily promoted today, but every signle day.

In the NRL there have been players accused or and players charged with domestic assault. This is not a problem which only afflicts NRL players or people in the spotlight, but is an issue which afflicts society at large.

As a woman who loves rugby league I am passionate about seeing more women involved in the game and to see more women become supporters of the game. While initiatives like Women in League are positive, it is on days like this where women want to see the NRL take a stand, be courageous and say that this behaviour is not tolerated in our game and should not be tolerated in society at large.

I hope to see some comments from the NRL today and to see our players getting out there and saying no to violence against women and set a positive example for males in the Australian community.

Love,

@LadiesWhoLeague

P.S. Thank you to the White Ribbon Day site, for the stats used in this story.