Djuarn “DJ” Baker-Adams was killed by her former partner in Slacks Creek after police had been in contact with her about domestic violence concerns within the previous ten days.
Now her mother, Patrice Power, is living every parent’s worst nightmare.
Patrice says her daughter’s pleas for help were not answered and that more should have been done to protect her. She is demanding an overhaul of Queensland’s domestic violence system before another family is forced to bury a daughter.
She is right.
Women are constantly told to speak up, report violence and seek help. But what happens when they do?
Too often, police record the complaint, courts issue a piece of paper and the woman is sent straight back into danger. The system places responsibility on her to gather evidence, predict the offender’s behaviour, find somewhere safe, protect her children and survive whatever retaliation follows.
Then, when she is killed, officials announce another review.
This is not protection. It is institutional abandonment.
Patriarchy Is Still Killing Women
Australia remains deeply patriarchal in the way domestic violence is handled.
The old belief that a woman is a man’s property has never completely disappeared. It now presents itself as coercive control, stalking, intimidation, financial abuse and the refusal to accept that a woman has the right to leave.
A controlling man believes that her independence is defiance. He believes her body, movements, relationships and decisions remain subject to his authority.
The system reinforces that entitlement whenever police minimise her fear, dismiss threats as a “relationship dispute” or wait for physical violence before taking decisive action.
Women should not have to be assaulted badly enough to qualify for protection.
They should not have to be nearly killed before authorities believe the danger is real.
Police Inaction Must Carry Serious Consequences
Police officers hold enormous power. When a terrified woman asks them for protection, their decisions can determine whether she lives or dies.
There must be severe consequences when an officer ignores, dismisses or recklessly mishandles a credible plea for help.
Not retraining.
Not an internal review hidden from the public.
Not another recommendation that nobody is required to implement.
There must be independent investigations, public findings, disciplinary action, dismissal and, where neglect of duty reaches the criminal threshold, prosecution.
Every domestic violence death involving previous police contact should automatically trigger an independent investigation examining:
- What the woman reported.
- What risks were identified.
- What action police took.
- Whether protection orders were enforced.
- Whether specialist officers were contacted.
- Who decided that no further intervention was necessary.
Without personal and institutional accountability, nothing changes. Authorities will continue processing women’s fear as paperwork while families live with the consequences forever.
Governments Must Stop Pretending Paperwork Is Protection
Governments announce funding, strategies, taskforces and reforms after every cluster of deaths. Yet women continue asking for help and mothers continue burying them.
Protection orders must be actively enforced. High-risk offenders must be monitored. Serious breaches must result in immediate action. Women and children must have immediate access to secure housing and practical protection—not another telephone number or waiting list.
The measure of a domestic violence policy is not how much money was announced.
It is whether the woman remained alive.
Patrice Power should not have been forced to become an advocate immediately after losing her daughter. She should not have to demand that authorities learn lessons they have already been taught repeatedly.
Women are speaking. The system is failing to act.
Until ignoring a woman’s plea for help carries severe consequences, those pleas will never receive the urgency they deserve.
Say Her Name
Djuarn “DJ” Baker-Adams.
She was loved. She mattered. She deserved protection.
No mother should receive that knock on the door after her daughter asked authorities for help.
Believe women before their families are forced to identify their bodies.
#StandUp #SpeakOut
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