Rank
33
Rosie Batty
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - JUNE 15: (EUROPE AND AUSTRALASIA OUT) Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, pictured in front of a painting of her late son, Luke Batty, in Melbourne, Victoria to promote the Luke Batty Foundation's 'Never Alone' campaign, which will launch on Luke Batty's 13th birthday. (Photo by Robert Leeson/Newspix/Getty Images)Newspix via Getty Images
- TitleFounder
- AffiliationLuke Batty Foundation
- Age54
On Feb. 12, 2014, 11-year-old Luke Batty was killed with a cricket bat by his own father, who was then shot and killed by police. The next day, Luke’s mother, Rosie, stood in front of television cameras and calmly said, “Family violence happens to everybody.” Thus began a nationwide road trip that has seen Batty selflessly put domestic violence on the Australian agenda in a country where one in five women has experienced sexual violence after age 15. “She moved forward the issue by a decade or more,” says Jeremy Lasek, whose government organization named Batty the Australian of the Year for 2015.