Over 80% of women and girls worldwide face street harassment: catcalls, groping, sexual comments and public masturbation. Street harassment limits women and girls’ mobility and access to public spaces and is a form of violence against women and a human rights violation. Last week was International End Sexual Harassment Week – AWAVA joined in with tweeting to raise awareness. Read more about why this is so important.
In other news around the nation
- The Commonwealth Government invites eligible organisations to apply for funding to deliver services such as counselling, support and case management to individuals and affected family members before, during and after their engagement with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
- In this article, Elizabeth Farrelly asks whether the rights of a culture outweigh the rights of it’s people
Internationally
- A G8 Summit held in the UK has seen nations pledge to end sexual violence against women and girls in war zones
- This Op-ed in the Huffington Post looks at how people conform to rape culture
- In Europe, countries are being urged to ratify the Council of Europe convention on violence against women
- In the UK, BBC drama Casualty runs a storyline on female genital mutilation/cutting to raise public awareness
Get Involved!
- The Stop the Violence Project headed by Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) is undertaking research to build the evidence base to support future reform of the service system to better respond to the needs of women and girls with disabilities. The project is funded by the Commonwealth Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) as part of the multi-layered approach to assisting women and girls with disabilities under the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The research seeks information from mainstream and specialist prevention and response policy-making, representative and service provider organisations across domestic violence/sexual assault, disability services and other relevant service sectors including the criminal justice and victims support sectors in all states and territories, particularly in regards to their views and experience of policy and practice relevant to violence prevention and response for women and girls with disabilities. For more information or to participate in the project, please visit click here Survey responses close on Friday 31 May
- Call for abstracts – Victims of Crime National Conference (VOCNC) 2013 26 and 27September, 2013 – The Victims of Crime National Conference 2013 will be hosted by Victim Support Service Inc in collaboration with the Office for Women. They are calling for abstracts, with a closing date of Friday 26 April 2013. Contributions from a wide range of professionals who have varied interests such as working with people who have experienced crime, victimology, law reform and trauma are being sought. Broad themes and other details for abstracts can be found here
*Articles published are not necessarily representative of the views and opinions of AWAVA, and are published as general information only