Erika Martino, a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, has conducted a research study highlighting affordable permanent housing as a key means to recovery for people leaving circumstances of domestic and family violence.

Women have been disproportionaly affected by social inequalities like lower wages, low education levels and high unemployment rates which translates to unaffordable, unsafe, and low quality housing situations.

“There is a clear link between women’s homelessness and intimate partner violence,” Erika said.

Indeed, she explained how having no safe place to stay is the major obstacle for women leaving domestic violence situations. Moreover, she continued explaining how,

“the cost of housing in Melbourne is exacerbating this problem.”

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 40 per cent of women accessing the Victorian homelessness system in 2016-17 cited intimate partner violence as a primary cause.

Martino agreed that finding secure ongoing housing (unlike crisis housing) is crucial for women’s safety and ability to recover from these experiences. She expressed how in fact survivors not only want counseling but also tangible support such as a safe, secure place to come home to every night.

Some of the ideas which Martino has already encountered include:

• The embedding of social services like a public library into new projects and;
• greater collaborations between multiple partner organisations to fund affordable, long-term housing in better locations.

[Read here to read the full article]

Partner violence has been consistently found to be linked with child neglect and abuse.

In Australia, the government has responded to a report documenting high levels of family violence in child protection cases.

Among the children involved in this review, the vast majority -more than 80 per cent- were subject to family violence for years with minimal intervention, and around 70 per cent of these children were found to have suffered serious neglect that sadly took place for years. Mark Collis, who is ACT’s executive director for children, youth and families, revealed that,

“family violence, drug and alcohol use, and mental illness account for over 90 per cent of the variables that lead to child protection.”

Dr Collis has expressed enthusiasm for a promising new system which would facilitate case workers to track markers of cumulative harm, since no single event might reach a threshold of severe violence, but if you take the child’s whole life story and put that in context you might see an accumulation of traumatizing child abuse and neglect.

The protection of society’s most vulnerable members is of utmost importance. However, Mr Collis admitted how challenging it is to balance and prevent deep trauma to children when being removed from their parent and the harm of being exposed to violence.

[Click here to read this full news report]

In Myanmar, the Ministry of Home affairs has sparked controversy for attributing a 28 per cent increase in reported cases of rape to factors such as victims’ drunkenness, and for encouraging women and girls to dress modestly to prevent rape.

Free Expression Myanmar, a local non-profit organization promoting the right to freedom of expression and Information in Myanmar, has done several investigations. They consistently found that stranger rape is indeed rare in the country. So, most rapes are actually pre-meditated. Women are being raped regardless of their dress or behavior.

Namely, women who speak uncomfortable truths or those who expose some form of injustice are at higher risk of facing sexual violence. Certain topics, such as contraception to supporting women for political leadership, are labelled as too sensitive in Myanmar. When a woman does not avoid these topics, sexual violence may take place as means for men to reassert their power with impunity.

Putting the blame on women does not only condones sexual violence but also promotes and perpetuates a wide-array of misogynistic conducts and values.

[Click here to read the full news article]

The fee of the exhibition booth/table will be going up after Friday, May 10! Large booths with a walled space and other facilities for US$600, and a simpler standalone table with basic facilities for US$300. Both are available at cost price. Bank charges are not included. Please apply for the booth through the link below. Register now!

Please note that you are responsible for decorating and staffing your booth/table. We do not expect you to have someone on duty all the time but recommend you assign a member of staff to at your booth/table during lunch and coffee breaks.

Please also remember that if you cancel your booth at any time up until October 7, 2019, you will be charged a 50% processing fee. You may apply to transfer ownership of your booth to another organization up until October 7, 2019, with a US$50 administrative transfer fee. Other than exceptional circumstances, no refunds will be given and no transfers will be accepted from October 8, 2019

Change of dates of 4th World Conference 2019 in Taiwan

The 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters (4WCWS) will now be taking place on November 8th-11th 2019. The aim of the Conference is to bring together 2,000 people from 120 countries to network and share ideas on how to strengthen women shelters and end violence against women. Rember to save the date.

SAVE THE DATE

March 12, 10.30 AM Church Center for the United Nations, Second Floor, New York

The Global Network of Women’s Shelters and The Garden of Hope Taiwan, invite you to participate in their parallel event during CSW62 (acronym for “Commission on the Status of Women, 62nd event”)

Subjects

• Violence against women in rural areas; support shelters offer. With contributions from Asia, Australia, Central/South America and Canada;
• Information about the 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters November 8-11 2019, Taipei.

Click here for further details.

We would be very happy to meet you there!

Official Announcement.

The Garden of Hope Foundation, Taiwan, in partnership with the Global Network of Women’s Shelter (GNWS), and the Asian Network of Women’s Shelters (ANWS) have officially announced that the 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters will be held in Taiwan on November 4-7, 2019.

The 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters (4WCWS) will bring together 2,000 people from 120 countries to network and share ideas on how to strengthen women shelters and end violence against women.

The Garden of Hope Foundation is a leading shelter organization in Taiwan and the secretariat of ANWS, and an active and prominent member of GNWS. With the backing of partners in Taiwan and the support of the GNWS member organizations, the 4th World Conference of Women’s Shelters is set to be a landmark event in the development shelter movement, and the effort to end violence against women.

Make sure you save the dates and start making your preparations to attend. Please check the conference website worldshelterconference.org for updates and fill out our mailing list form to stay in touch with us https://goo.gl/forms/yFpLXDh52wgJWIqc2.

Chi Hui-Jung,
CEO, Garden of Hope Foundation
Chairperson, ANWS

Bandana Rana
Chair, GNWS

Riekje Kok
Coordinator, GNWS Office in The Hague

The WAVE office is delighted to announce that the 2017 WAVE Conference will take place in Budapest, Hungary! Please mark your calendars for the 30th of October until 1st of November 2017! A draft agenda and the registration form with all details will be available soon! We are looking forward to seeing you there!

See: www.wave-network.org

“The elimination of Violence Against Women is in your Hands.”

[Solidarity Bracelet in support to ABAAD Emergency Safe Sheltering Program for Women & Girls Survivors of GBV In Lebanon]

Motto of the Conference: “Towards Coordinated Efforts for the promotion of safe sheltering services for women and girls survivors of GBV in the MENA region” held in Beirut, 6-9 July, 2017.

In partnership with Fondation de France, ABAAD hosted from 6 to 9 July in Beirut the regional working seminar entitled Towards coordinated efforts for the promotion of safe sheltering services for women and girls survivors of GBV in the Mena region.

The meeting was moderated by Fatima Outaleb from Morocco, also GNWS chair/contactperson for the Mena-region.

Participants attending the seminar were from Jordan, Palestine, Kurdistan Iraq, Syria, Morocco Tunisia, Denmark, Netherlands, Egypt and Lebanon representing shelters run by NGOs, governments and Ministry family units. During the four working days, participants raised different issues and challenges facing shelters and reflected on best ways to address them.

The first day was more devoted to experience and expertise sharing in sheltering and working with women victims of GBV.

Participants from the region exposed the challenges but also their best stories and tools they developed namely the referral system recently adopted in Palestine , Jordan and Lebanon. The political context as well as the multiple emerging types of GBV were at the heart of all interventions and analysis. Participants also highlighted how armed conflicts shaped the scope of their work which revolves more around women refugees and displaced women and children. By the end of the first day, the group discussed the relevance of the working topics assigned earlier by the organizers and adopted them or come up with others methodology that can feed into the toolkit, which has been set as the outcome of this working conference.

The working groups’ topics were:

• The vision , mission and objectives of a shelter
• Approaches and methodologies
• Legal policy(code of conduct and internal policy)
• Infrastructure measures of safety and security
• Programs and activities for women and staff
• Advocacy and networking

The methodology adopted was more participative where each group has appointed its moderator to lead the discussions and a reporter to present the outcomes of the work. During the second day participants divided into 6 groups around each topic, elaborated presentations outlining their vision of major appropriate shelter activities in favour of women and staff, codes of conduct that regulate work and relationships in shelters, structures that provides security and safety and clear roadmaps to networking and advocacy.

The third and fourth day were also devoted to groups’ participations in reflecting on the working groups’ outcomes and final presentations that will all feed into the operational toolkit to be drafted and presented for discussion to the groups eventually.

In the meantime, Participants from Danner, GNWS, WCLAC,Mehwar, Jordan family unit and Kurdistan Iraq all shared their experiences in sheltering as well as the challenges they are facing in their daily work.

Lisbeth Jessen, executive director from Danner related the history of the first shelter in Denmark created by women activists and shared a book about the methodology of Danner.

Riekje Kok, board member of GNWS, exposed the GNWS objectives , goals and three conferences. She shared the protocol of the Inter American Network (“Shelters Without Borders”) and invited Mena representatives to join the network.

Other experiences from the region triggered the interest of participants mainly the referral systems newly adopted in Palestine and Jordan.

Concluding remarks

• It was obvious from all the recommendations that participants are badly in need of such meetings to frame their work in shelters and enhance their competences and skills.
• The issues of vision and mission of shelters have also triggered some controversy bringing into view the complexity of the task of social workers, their scope of work , legal and ethical boundaries that may hinder the achievement of better results namely in countries which penalizes the act of hiding a married woman (Morocco, Jordan)
• Recommendations also revolved around the importance of bringing together shelters run by governments and those created by NGOs and Human rights defenders to strengthen the work in shelters and contribute to the unification of working procedures and tools. Shelters according to most participants should move from being accommodation houses to mechanisms of change.
• The urgent need is the improvement of shelters work, visibility as driving force of change and an opportunity to advocate and lobby decision makers to adopt policies that promote gender equality and social equity.

The 2017 Asian conference of Women’s Shelters has been held from August 28 – 30 in Paipei, Taiwan. The theme of the conference was: “Continental shifts in shelter management. Cross-regional dialogue on transforming women’s shelters”.

Held in the context of a discussion on shelter transformation in Taiwan and other countries in Asia, experts from Europe and North America were invited. The event has brought together shelter heads, domestic violence professionals and community partners from over a dozen Asian countries and many more organizations. They shared innovative models of shelter management and combatting domestic violence – including the Council of Europe’s Istanbul Convention and the Oranje Huis (Orange House) model from the Netherlands.

Videos of the Asian Shelter Conference are online now