Weekly Round Up* 8 September 2015

Around the country

• Legislation criminalising “revenge porn”, which involves the distribution of sexually explicit images without consent, has been proposed by the federal Opposition.
• Rodney Vlais from No To Violence has talked about the need to work with men in preventing domestic violence.
• Daisy, the domestic violence app developed by the Australian government, has been downloaded 100 times every week since its launch 6 months ago.
• In Tasmania, Governor Kate Warner has warned about the shortcomings of law reform as a tool to combat violence against women, suggesting that changing community attitudes is critical in order to achieve change.
• In Queensland, the Queensland University of Technology will offer Australia’s first graduate certificate in responding to domestic violence, starting February 2016.
• Also in Queensland, the specialist domestic violence court which is to be trialled for the next six months has opened.
• In Victoria, the Greens have made proposals to remove the right of religious schools to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation from current anti-discrimination law.

Around the World

• In Fiji, 21 communities have been identified for the implementation of a violence free campaign.
• In Canada, new policy measures addressing violence against Aboriginal women have been unveiled.
• In Saudi Arabia, the ruling allowing women to vote and run for local elections, declared in 2011, has finally come to pass.
• In India, all women police stations and a hotline to address violence against women were launched in multiple states last week.

Get involved!

• Women’s Services Network (WESNET) is presenting two free webinars under the Recharge project funded by ACCAN on technology and safety for community legal service and domestic/family violence practitioners. Places limited.  Register here!
• Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS) is recruiting for the position of Senior Project Officer (Perpetrator Interventions). More information here!
• The Damned Whores and God’s Police 40 Years On Conference on Anne Summer’s seminal text by the same name will be held at the University of Technology Sydney, from 21 – 23 September 2015. Register here!
• The Women’s World Summit Foundation’s new campaign – 17 Days of Activism for the Empowerment of Rural Women and their Communities – begins on 1 October 2015. More information here!
• The 2015 National Indigenous Domestic Violence Conference will be held on 7 October 2015 in Carrara, Queensland.
• The Festival of THE Rural Woman, a free online global event, is running from 12 – 15 October 2015. Register here!
• The Canberra Community Sleepout will be held on 16 October 2015. Find out here how you can get involved and help combat homelessness in Canberra!
• The 3^rd World Conference of Women’s Shelters will be held in The Hague from 3 – 6 November 2015. More information here!