Four women are dead after four suspected domestic violence incidents in one week in South Australia, sparking urgent calls to end the preventable tragedies.
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The fatal shooting of 55-year-old mother Jodie Jewell on Tuesday, allegedly at the hands of her husband Kevin, is the latest tragedy to rock the state.
It followed the deaths of a 44-year-old woman in Adelaide's east and a 45-year-old woman near Port Augusta last week and a 39-year-old woman in Adelaide's south on Sunday.
Three separate men, all known to each woman, have been charged with their murders.
The spate of femicides comes after a United Nations report found more women and girls were killed in 2022 globally despite a drop in overall homicide numbers.
Kate Fitz-Gibbon, director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, said the report should spark urgent action to prevent violence against women.
"The impact of violence against women and girls globally is incomprehensible," she said.
"This is not a problem occurring only internationally, this is an urgent problem in Australia."
"Australia has a national plan which commits to ending gender based violence in one generation. Achieving this requires accelerated commitments and increased investment in evidence-based prevention to improve safety outcomes for women and girls."
SA Minister for Domestic Violence Prevention Katrine Hildyard acknowledged the collective grief and anger at the loss of the four women.
"We must all continue to speak up and act," she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"This violence is preventable."
Deirdre Flynn, client services manager of crisis accommodation provider Catherine House, said "good men" having uncomfortable conversations with their mates when they feel something is off would make an immediate difference.
"We need to move past the discomfort," she told ABC Radio on Thursday.
"We need to step up, be vulnerable, have the courage and not be worried about offending.
"This is happening every day, every week. We can't keep waiting for the impact of the change that we're all working towards at the moment."
SA Police said Ms Jewell had confided in her friend that she was the victim of domestic abuse but they had not been alerted to it.
Superintendent Des Bray said her husband was a licensed firearms holder and police had no information before the attack that would have precluded him from legally owning a weapon.
Ms Flynn said people need to act on concerns about abusive relationships much earlier.
The latest wave of violence comes after five women were killed in 10 days across Australia in October, including 21-year-old high school water polo coach Lilie James, leading federal deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley to label it a "national crisis".
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