The talk was held by Australian Women Against Violence Alliance (AWAVA) on the topic
Specialist Women's Services Against Violence as Essential
Infrastructure.
AWAVA is responding to and preventing domestic violence against women
and their children. Their role is to ensure that women’s voices are heard
within government and policy development. AWAVA is a program by WESNET – Women’s Services
Network – the peak body for domestic and family violence services who is the lead
agency and contract holder.
They provide specialist women’s services through Essential
Services Packages which is developed in partnership with UN Women, UNFPS, WHO,
UNDP, and UNDOC. This ensures greater access to coordinated multi-sectoral services
for women and girls who have experienced gender-based violence. These packages
include crisis information/ counseling, help lines, safe accommodations,
material and financial aid, community information and education and more. The packages are victim/ survivor centered with safety being paramount.
So far this year, 14 women have been killed by domestic
violence in Australia. AWAVA recognizes that aborigine and indigenous women are
5 times more likely to be the victims of domestic violence than other women. In
addition, these women have been systematically isolated and excluded from the
society, so their voices have not been heard. They have a deep lack of trust in
the government, the police, the legal system, social services and the health
care system.
The women’s services have developed a close partnership with
aborigine workers in order to get access to women in the communities, and hence
create trust. The main focus behind all their programs is to break the silent
codes surrounding domestic violence and get women across the pacific to talk about sexual assaults. They emphasizes community education and
outreach programs and see the necessity of teaching women what a loving and
healthy relationship entails.
They showed a video clip called Let’s Change the
Story: Violence Against Women in Australia which illustrated and underlined their
work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLUVWZvVZXw
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