Last week, AWAVA was able to participate in highly productive roundtable discussions with Government, business, academics, and NGOs to help with the development of the Second Action Plan. A call for submissions has now gone out for written submissions to inform the development of the Second Action Plan under the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-22. Submissions are due by 14 March.
In exciting news, the National Women’s Alliances (including AWAVA) will be presenting a half-day forum on the Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Human Rights Treaty System.
Around the Country
- The Australian Institute of Criminology has released a report on human trafficking involving partner migration and how victims/survivors seek help
- Pittwater Council is looking to work in partnership with local organisations to eliminate violence against women
- A two day forum is being held in Rockhampton to help find ways to address growing rates of domestic violence in Central Queensland
- The video of a presentation about rape culture given by Australian Writer Clementine Ford at TEDxSouthBankWomen is now available online
Around the World
- The Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters has released a video about how everyday people can help prevent and eliminate violence against women
- In the United States, a nation-wide study has found that domestic violence survivors are experiencing severe health issues as a result of their abuse and that those health needs are not being met
- “[T]he Pascua Yaqui of Arizona, the Tulalip of Washington state and the Umatilla of Oregon — will be the first of the [United States’] federally recognized 566 Native American/American Indian tribes to exercise criminal jurisdiction over domestic and dating violence when a non-Indian man is involved”
- In Sri Lanka, the Birendra and Serika Siriwardhana Initiative has held its first Youth Awareness Project on Gender Based Violence (GBV) Conference for young people
- Dylan Farrow’s recent writing about being abused as a child has attracted a huge amount of media attention [Trigger Warning: descriptions of child sexual abuse]
- In Massachusetts, a new program is teaching beauticians to identify signs of domestic violence and refer their clients to local services
- In Canada, trafficking of Inuit women and girls has become a growing and alarming problem
- The Guardian has “launched a women’s rights and gender equality section to provide a specific focus on the pressing issues affecting women, girls and transgender people around the world, and the critical work being carried out by women’s rights movements”
- Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, in peaking about Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting “calls for intensified efforts to stop the practice in all its forms“
Research and Reports
- Women’s Legal Services NSW have submitted to the Australian Law Reform Commission on “issues of violence against women with disabilities, intersectional discrimination, family law and employment”
**Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of AWAVA and are included as items of interest only