This week, AWAVA joined the five other Commonwealth-funded National Women's Alliances at the joint annual forum. Discussions focused on achievements and challenges during the first three years and future plans for the Alliances individually and collectively. Margaret Augerinos, an Executive Member of our Advisory Group, also represented AWAVA's CSW57 delegation in a panel discussion chaired by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, [...]
The news this week in Australia has been dominated by examples of sexist behaviour and attitudes – a strong reminder that there is a way to go to address gender inequality and, ultimately, the prevention of violence against women, which is both a cause and consequence of gender and social inequalities. […]
US rapper, Tyler-the-Creator has been in Australia this week giving concerts; his song lyrics promote violence against women, so should we really be giving him a platform to do this? We can't excuse songs about rape, genital mutilation, raping corpses and burying bodies, as 'entertainment' or 'free speech'. A resolution in the Philippines was filed [...]
The power of collective lobbying and advocacy last week made two great impacts - pressuring Facebook to review its policies and training to include gender-based hate speech in their moderating of online material; and, in Australia, much-needed amendments were made to NSW's compensation to victims of violence against women. In other news...a busy week around the country! AWAVA added our [...]
This week AWAVA Chairperson, Julie Oberin, attended the inaugural International White Ribbon Conference: Global to Local: Preventing Men’s Violence against Women – Research, Policy and Practice in One Space. AWAVA also attended the Federal budget stakeholder lock-up on 14 May, see more below... Federal Budget The Women's Budget Highlights 2013-14 can be accessed here - be sure to have a [...]
AWAVA comments on the 2013-14 Federal Budget announcements: Julie Oberin, Chair of AWAVA, comments "An ongoing budgetary commitment, clearly linked to the National Plan implementation, across the entire plan and its lifetime, is fundamental each year. This needs to be commensurate with the scale of the issue. The announcements in the 2013-14 budget for the [...]
The budget announcements under personal safety of women and children (National Plan) for 2013-14 include $44 million: $5.2 million over 5 years for the establishment and operation of the Foundation to Prevent Violence against Women and their Children $7.6 million over 3 years to continue and extend DV-Alert training program $28.5 million to June 2017 to [...]
AWAVA's Chair, Julie Oberin, presented on the Stopping Violence Against Women Before It Happens: A Practical Toolkit for Communities, and joined a National Women's Alliance panel session, at the 7th Australian Women's Health Network (AWAVA member organisation) Conference, Gender Matters: Determining Women's Health, last week. AWAVA also announced our endorsement of AWHN's 2012 Position Paper, Women and Health and Well-being, which [...]
The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) have announced the online publication of the first Progress Report to the Council of Australian Governments on the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. Comments from FaHCSIA: “This report is the first in a series of progress reports to [...]
Last week, AWAVA attended AMaRWA’s national Stand Up! Eliminating All Forms of Violence Against CALD Women conference, sponsoring three CALD women survivors of violence and their support workers to make sure that particularly marginalised women’s voices are heard by governments. We thank the survivors and their support workers for the valuable time and for sharing their experiences. Candlelight vigils [...]