Members of AWAVA today attended the NGO Round Table preparing for the 56th Session of the Commission of the Status of Women which will be held at the UN in New York in March 2012. The theme for the 56th Session will be on the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges.
The Minister for Women, the Hon Kate Ellis MP video-linked in from her electoral office to talk to the group and tell us how committed she is to preparing for the 56th session, and thanked all the participants for attending today. She also announced the three NGO delegates that will attend the 56th Session, all of whom were at the round table today. You can read more about here.
The Office for Women canvassed issues that concern women in rural, regional and remote Australia, and as most would expect, the discussion was wide ranging. Violence Against Women was raised by many organisations and intersected with a number of other important issues raised by the group. For example – access to housing, transport, health services and technology were all discussed and all could be related to Violence Against Women.
We’ll keep you posted on preparations for CSW as we hear about it. In the meantime if you are interested in finding out more about the CSW JERA has a great website full of resources and you can also subscribe to OFW’s mailing discussion list here. BPW has a handbook to help NGOs understand the UN and CSW at the bottom of this page.
AWAVA will be actively trying to build our capacity in this area as the theme for 2013 is Violence Against Women.