Reeva Steenkamp Is The 'Girlfriend' Oscar Pistorius Killed: Let's Not Forget That

Five years doesn't seem very long a sentence to make up for taking someone else's life. After all, that person is gone forever, not just relocated to the underworld for a few years. Ten months is a bad joke.

So why is it that the victim in the Oscar Pistorius case, Reeva Steenkamp, a 29 year old model and the one now paying the ultimate price in this scenario, seems to be the furthest from people's minds when discussing the ruling.

Pistorius is even starting to be framed as the new 'victim' - with a life ruined by the experience.

Articles discuss his future - a future Steenkamp was robbed of - and even speculate about when he'll next race.

But despite being a 'victim' of his own making, he remains the perpertrator and it's insulting to the real victim, Steenkamp, to suggest otherwise.

The Victim Fades

Is it out of sight out of mind? Reeva's life's over so now the world will forget her and concentrate on the life Pistorius now gets to lead, despite his awful crime.

In the Guardian piece 'Oscar Pistorius Should Not Be Going To Jail' Simon Jenkins suggests that a longer sentence wouldn't 'deter' anyone, so what's the point?

He raises bigger questions about what the purpose of our (and in this case South Africa's) justice system is and what we want to achieve when we punish members of society who cross the line.

But he fails to even refer to Steenkamp by name and in more and more articles she becomes the nameless girlfriend, drifting into insignificance as the new story is Pistorius' life now.

This was a young, vibrant woman who died. She wasn't just a man's 'girlfriend', or in this case the 'girlfriend of the killer'. She had a life full of friends and relationships, ambitions and goals, likes and dislikes and she leaves behind loved ones still struggling to come to terms with her loss.

Changing The Narrative

This is the world's chance to change the narrative. Instead of framing everything in terms of the perpetrator, we need to bring focus back to the victim. We need to talk about her experience and how we might have prevented it by fighting harder to end domestic violence against women.

Because she's not alone.

In the UK, two women a week are killed by a current or former partner and 90 per cent of domestic violence calls to the police are taken no further.

Women in these situations still don't have a voice, and Steenkamp has been stripped of hers twice. Firstly by her killing, and secondly in our headlines.

The more we talk about the victims, the more we keep their plight in the spotlight, rather than caring about how Pistorius or any other perpetrator of violence against women rebuilds his life after punishment.

#HerNameWasReevaSteenkamp. Let's not forget it.

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