About 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign
Led by women’s rights defenders, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international campaign that begins on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day. It was initiated by activists at the inaugural Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 and continues to be coordinated each year by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. It galvanizes the advocacy and actions by individuals, communities and institutions around the world to eliminate violence against women and girls.
AWAVA’s 2020 16 Days theme: Communities Driving Change
The Australian Women Against Violence Alliance community is comprised of 25 specialist women’s services and over 500 individual friends and supporters from across all states and territories. We wanted to use the opportunity during our 16 Days Campaign to provide a platform and amplify the voices of our community, made up of diverse leaders, frontline workers and advocates, many with lived experience of violence. This is how Communities Driving Change was selected as AWAVA’s theme for 16 Days campaign, with the accompanying hashtag #AllVoicesForSafety and #16days.
AWAVA invited members of our community to share what they are doing to drive change and what their priorities are for safety. Throughout the period of the 16 Days Campaign, we featured our diverse community members on AWAVA’s Facebook and Twitter, including interviews with Harmony Alliance who work with migrants and refugee women, Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA), Project Respect who work with sex works and who are victims/survivors of trafficking, National Council for Sing Mothers and Their Children, Older women NSW, the National Rural Women’s Coalition and many other organisations working to end gender-based violence across Australia.
Spotlight on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women
Spotlight on Rural, Regional and Remote Women
Spotlight on Trafficked Women and Women Working in Sex Industry
AWAVA also spoke with two survivor advocates working with Domestic Violence NSW, Jane Matts and Rachael Natoli.
In this space, Jane is “working with women in Queensland and NSW who have had their voices ignored in Family Court/Federal Circuit Court (FCC). Many have had their children removed as a result of poor management of DV/child sex abuse.”
Read the full post here.
Thank you to all the Friends and Supporters who submitted your responses and those who have liked and shared these important messages. We created a digital clip featuring submissions from Marie Stopes Australia, Children by Choice Association Inc, Central Coast Community Women’s Health Centre and more.
Visit AWAVA’s Facebook and Twitter to see all the posts.
Collectively, our community called for programs and services that tailor to the diversity of victims/survivor’s and that are trauma-informed, along with many other good practices principles that can be found in the revised Good practice principles in addressing sexual and gender-based violence: Drawing on the unique practice model of specialist women’s services brochure, which was launched during the 16 Days Campaign period. Building on over 40 years of feminist and social justice approaches, the impact and effectiveness of specialist women’s services is underpinned by a set of good practice principles that are supported by international research and evidence-based practice. These principles should inform the delivery and coordination of all essential services responding to women and children subjected to violence.
In marking the launch of the Good Practice Principles brochure, we also hosted a webinar with representatives from our organisational members who contributed to this important work.
Moderated by Tina Dixson, Acting Program Manager, AWAVA, the panel was made up of:
- Bonney Corbin, Australian Women’s Health Network, Marie Stopes Australia
- Kedy Kristal, Centre for Women’s Safety and Wellbeing
- Yvette Cehtel, Women’s Legal Services Tasmania
- Karen Bentley, WESNET
A recording of the webinar will be uploaded shortly.
Thank you everyone, for your engagement in building our community to end violence against women, wherever you are. We look forward to working together in the 2021 16 Days Campaign and beyond!
Checkout other organisations’ 16 Days Campaign
