5WCWS | Registration & Call for Abstracts are now open!

1 August 2024

Registration and Call for Abstracts are now open for the 5th World Conference of Women’s Shelters (5WCWS) being held 15-18 September 2025 in Sydney, Australia.  To find out more, please visit: https://fifthworldshelterconference.org/

PRESS RELEASE | Sydney, Australia to host the 5th World Conference Of Women’s Shelters

18 March 2024

Last week the host city for the 5th World Conference of Women’s Shelters was announced and will be held 15-18 September 2025 in Sydney, Australia. This event will be hosted by Wesnet (Women’s Services Network Inc.) and the Global Network of Women’s Shelters (GNWS). The announcement is available here.

Read the GNWS Newsletter #5

Click here for our latest newsletter!

The Global Network of Women’s Shelters has exciting news and announcements to share with you! 2024 has been off to a great start of meaningful encounters and developments, all aimed at ending gender-based violence and providing women and their children all over the world with the help and support they need.

In our latest newsletter, you can learn more about: 

  • GNWS Parallel Event at CSW68 in NYC
  • Our view on the link between poverty and gender-based violence
  • In-person reception at Meta during CSW68
  • Upcoming news on the 5th World Conference
  • Garden of Hope Parallel Events during CSW
  • Lila.Help updates
  • #HeForShe in Ethiopia
  • 50 years of women’s shelters in Australia

Do you have any questions, suggestions, or stories to share? Please get in touch: info@gnws.org.

Warm regards,

The GNWS Team

The GNWS in New York for CSW67

For this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women, several members of the GNWS traveled to New York City to attend UN side events, NGO parallel events and meet with changemakers from all over the world. Additionally, we (co-)hosted two events ourselves!

Power Up: Women’s Tech and Innovation Reception

On Thursday, March 9th, Lila.help, StopNCII.org and Meta hosted “Power Up” – a special reception in celebration of women leaders in tech and innovation, gender equality, and women’s safety. The reception took place for four hours (4-8pm) at the Meta Office in New York. It was an evening of networking, cocktails and engaging conversation with some of the most influential women at the forefront of tech and policy. The GNWS is very grateful to have had this opportunity to promote our global directory of support services for victims of gender-based violence: Lila.help. With over 400 attendees the reception was a success and a great place to connect with shelter workers, women’s organizations, and women leaders in tech from all over the world.

Technology & Innovation: Threat or Opportunity for Women’s Safety?

On Wednesday March 15th, the GNWS hosted a parallel event at the NGO Forum of CSW67. During this hybrid event, we discussed how technological innovation can help increase women’s safety, but we also shed a light on the digital dimensions of gender-based violence. We heard from our partners UN Women and Accor, our Lila.help project leader, and GNWS representatives from all continents. We were happy to share our updates and announcements with the 120 online registrants and over 50 in person participants, and to be able to engage in a conversation about women’s safety across the globe.

In case you missed our parallel event, you can watch the recording here!

NGO CSW67 Parallel event | Technology & Innovation: Threat or Opportunity for Women’s Safety?

The 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, wil revolve around the priority theme: “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls”. During this forum, thousands of activist leaders and advocates for women’s safety, empowerment and equality, will travel to New York City or join online in the NGO CSW67.

This year, the Global Network of Women’s Shelters will host a hybrid parallel event, focused on the possibilities of technological innovations contributing to women’s safety as well as the dangers of digital dimensions to gender-based violence. During the event, we will hear from some of our official partners and regional representatives of the GNWS. Moreover, there will be a presentation including updates, demonstration and future ambitions for Lila.help.

Details:

  • Date: March 15th 2023
  • Time: 10:30AM-12PM EST (find your timezone here)
  • In-person attendance: Church Center of United Nations (11th floor) in New York City (seats are limited, please register soon). Like and attend this event HERE.
  • Online attendance: join us via Zoom, register here!

Please register for this event: ONLINE or IN-PERSON

 

Help us become even better: Donate now!

By donating you enable us to:

  • Dig deeper: help us identify and support the available shelters and NGOs in every country and territory in the world
  • Provide hyper-local support: besides the organization functioning at the national level, we want every regional shelter and local service provider to be found in our directory
  • Make our website more user friendly: e.g. by providing specialized search (search option for wheelchair accessible shelters, or services where they speak a certain language, shelters that accept pets, etc.)

PRESS RELEASE | The GNWS Launches Lila.help: A Global Directory of Support Services for People Experiencing Gender-Based Violence

Global Network of Women’s Shelters, UN Women, Meta and other organizations launch Lila.help as the first global directory of support services for domestic abuse and sexual violence

April 6, 2022 – Today the Global Network of Women’s Shelters (GNWS), along with UN Women, National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), Meta, and other organizations launched Lila.help, their global directory of trustworthy support services for people seeking support from domestic and sexual violence. This directory of helplines, local shelters and crisis centers is accessible for everyone – victims, survivors, family or friends, service providers, embassy or tourism staff, or anyone looking to find support.

“Lila.help is in itself a lifeline for those seeking support at a very urgent time. It is of enormous importance that every person can find safe, and up-to-date information wherever they are in the world. It is even more important that this information comes directly from the direct service providers themselves. This helps provide reliable and trustworthy information that is accurately tailored for local communities.” (Kalliope Mingeirou, Chief Ending Violence against Women Section, UN Women)

UN Women provided financial and technical support for the Lila.help, making it become the first truly global resource of its kind.

A global essential service

Advocates around the world have been discussing the need for a vetted global directory for many years. As Ashley Slye, Deputy Director of the Positively Safe program at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), says:

“I have been working for a long time with both NNEDV and the Global Network of Women’s Shelters, but when one of my friends came to me after experiencing sexual violence in Asia, I was unsure where to send her. In that moment I knew there was a need for a global directory highlighting vetted domestic violence and sexual assault helplines and crisis centers. With the development of Lila.Help, there is now a comprehensive, multi-national resource I feel comfortable sending my friends and family to if they need to reach help.”

In 2019 the GNWS started developing the directory and rallied victim advocates at the 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters. At the time of launch, Lila.help includes national helplines from 95 countries, which will continue to expand as more verified support resources are added to the system. It provides data that is trustworthy, accurate and reliable because it is shared by organizations themselves. The online form allows local, national, and regional organizations the opportunity to enter their own data directly, providing as much detail as possible. Many organizations share their opening hours and contact information, along with descriptions of their offered services, including online services which became so important during the pandemic.

Reliable and trustworthy referral resource

To ensure all provided data is reliable and up to date, the GNWS uses a verification process by front-line service providers from its global networks. Once a form has been submitted, it is reviewed by someone within the GNWS network who knows that specific region or country and can make an informed decision whether this would be an organization ‘you would send your loved one to’, as the GNWS frames it.

“In Latin America, the access to services, especially during the pandemic, was very difficult. So, for us it’s like a dream come true to have all the valid and trustworthy services in just one click”, says Margarita Guille of the Interamerican Shelter Network. “Now that the technology gives us lots of opportunities to reach out to each other, to be in contact in real time, I think Lila.help is the real answer for all those that are looking for help for their daughters, sisters or themselves.”

Constantly up to date

All organizations in the directory will be regularly consulted if their data is still up to date. This provides organizations with the option to add, change, or update anything in their record. If they do not respond, their record will be made temporarily invisible, to avoid sending survivors to a shelter or helpline that had to close its doors due to lack of funding. With this system, Lila.help also gives organizations the option to update the information to show everything they can offer.

“We at Meta were eager to support Lila.Help in order to help survivors and their loved ones access resources immediately,” said Cindy Southworth, Head of Women’s Safety at Meta and founding board member of the GNWS, “Building the technology behind Lila.Help aligns with our priority of connecting people to accurate, life-saving information,”

Employees from Meta (formerly Facebook) developed these automated technology features as part of their efforts to support survivors of gender-based violence during the pandemic.

“In Japan, there are not enough organizations that provide full-fledged support for a wide variety of victims, and it is not easy to find and reach these organizations” Chisato Kitanaka, All Japan Women’s Shelter Network, explains. “Therefore, we have collected information on reliable support groups here at Lila.help, such as NGOs that support young women fleeing from abusive families, shelters that help foreigners, hotlines and online chats, one-stop support centers for sexual violence, and more. Especially during COVID-19, when women are often confined to their home with their abusive partner, services as an online chat are vital and we are pleased that Lila.help displays this information.”

Sustaining Lila.help into the future

For the GNWS, this is only the beginning. As described by Vivian Hartlief, the project lead of Lila.help:

“For the rest of 2022 we will focus on digging deeper, by identifying and supporting the available shelters, helplines, and NGOs in every country and territory in the world. Up until now we have a total of 95 countries, but in some cases, we only have the national helpline, when there are incredible local and regional organizations available.”

In addition, the GNWS will continue to make Lila.help more user-friendly. “We want to provide specialized search opportunities. For example, if you use a wheelchair, you need to know upfront if a shelter is accessible,” Vivian states.

Do you want to contribute to worldwide women’s safety? Donate to the GNWS to make sure that women can reach out for assistance, wherever they are in the world. Every contribution is welcome. Or reach out to us on ways you or your organization can collaborate with Lila.help.


About the Global Network of Women’s Shelters (GNWS)

The GNWS a global voice for survivors of violence against women and the shelters, helplines, and crisis centers that serve them. The GNWS was born at the 2008 first World Conference of Women’s Shelters in Edmonton, Canada when national networks from around the globe decided to combine their efforts to help survivors of violence and the shelters and crisis centres that support them. The strength and reach of the GNWS is due to its foundation of a global network of shelter/GBV networks, including continental, regional, national, state/provincial. More information: www.gnws.org

About UN Women

UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide. UN Women works to prevent and respond to violence, to increase access to services for survivors and to make private and public spaces safer for women and girls. At the global level we work to advance international policies providing support to the United Nations General Assembly and the Commission on the Status of Women, and ensuring that the post-2015 development agenda includes specific targets to end violence against women and girls. More information: unwomen.org.

CSW66 parallel event: Worldwide Women’s Helplines

 

On March 14th 2022, the digital CSW66 parallel event ‘Worldwide Women’s Helplines Project: Where We Are’ took place. During this webinar, we heard about the preparations for the launch of Lila.help, and got different regional updates from our network around the world. Great thanks to the moderator and all speakers!

We want to give a special thanks to Marta Chumalo from Centre Women’s Perspectives in Ukraine, for the wonderful work they are doing and the time Marta took to record a video for this event. If anyone would like to support their organization working for women’s rights in Ukraine, you can donate here: www.betterplace.at/support-womens-human-rights-defenders-in-ukraine

Did you miss the CSW66 webinar? No worries! You can view the recording here.

Lila.help launch

The Global Network of Women’s Shelters launches Lila.help: a global directory of support services for people experiencing gender-based violence. 

After a year of IT development, gathering helpline and shelter information, and preparation the time has come!

On April 6th, the Global Network of Women’s Shelters (GNWS) is launching Lila.help their global directory of support services for people fleeing from domestic and sexual violence. Lila.help is easily accessible for everyone – a survivor, family or friends, service providers, embassy or tourism staff, or anyone looking to find support. Join us for our official launch with our funder, UN Women.

Register via Lila.help launch April 6 8AM EDT

 

Help us become even better: Donate now!

By donating you enable us to:

  • Dig deeper: help us identify and support the available shelters and NGOs in every country and territory in the world
  • Provide hyper-local support: besides the organization functioning at the national level, we want every regional shelter and local service provider to be found in our directory
  • Make our website more user friendly: e.g. by providing specialized search (search option for wheelchair accessible shelters, or services where they speak a certain language, shelters that accept pets, etc.)

Calling on organizations to share your information!

Lila.help is the first global website with a complete, accurate, and reliable listing of helplines and shelters in every country, to quickly become one of the linked-to webpages in the anti-violence against women sector. We are calling on organisations to join us!

What is Lila.help?

Lila.help is a global website where everybody, victims of gender-based violence (including domestic and sexual violence), supporting family, friends and professionals can easily find trustworthy direct help information of every country in the world. Every helpline or organization on Lila.help is safe, will provide a listening ear, understands what victims need, is part of a broader crisis-help network, and can answer your questions or call for help.

I am convinced, what do I do?

You can read the manual of filling in the lila.help directory by following this link.

After that you can add your organization by following this link.

Thank you for joining!

Emergency website exit