It was a Wednesday evening, a little over 10 days ago, when Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive manager, disappeared in Clapham Common, a widely popular neighborhood park in the south of London. Since then, a police officer and a woman were arrested on suspicion of abduction and murder, and Sarah’s remains have been found near Kent. On Friday 12 March, the police officer was arrested in relation to Sarah’s murder. Usually, and tragically, like most women, I have grown used to the idea of other women disappearing: in China, where I lived for four years, the one child policy favored male offspring, resulting a sex imbalance and leading to wife-kidnapping as men in villages have sought to start families of their own; in Egypt, female activists and journalists are often detained and quickly forgotten by local and international media. Perhaps, the case of Sarah would have also evaded my weary consciousness of the perpetual violence that strikes the lives of women. However, her case hit too close to home – quite literally. Everard had disappeared 10 minutes away from my flat, and in the park where I walked in…
