World Conference of Women’s Shelters: Violence against women put in spotlight amid conflicts

Hard-won rights for women must be fiercely protected as they are not guaranteed, particularly in times of conflict, advocates for ending gender-based violence say.

More than 1000 delegates from 100 nations are travelling to Sydney for the fifth world conference of women’s shelters.

It is the first time the event has been held in the southern hemisphere, and is the largest gathering dedicated to ending gender-based violence of all forms.

Among attendees will be Ukrainian women’s and LGBTQI advocate Olena Shevchenko, named Time’s Woman of the Year in 2023.

Ms Shevchenko established the Kyiv-based non-profit Insight in 2017 to support women and LGBTQI communities.

But when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the organisation’s work shifted to urgent crisis response.

LGBTQI people and women are disproportionately vulnerable during war and the conflict in Ukraine had made Insight’s work more visible internationally, Ms Shevchenko told AAP.

“War always magnifies existing inequalities. Gender-based violence becomes a tool of domination and humiliation, both on the battlefield and within communities under stress,” she said.

“Sexual violence is used deliberately by aggressors to destroy people’s dignity, to terrorise populations and to assert power.”

Ms Shevchenko said hard-won rights for women and the LGBTQI community were not guaranteed and could be rolled back in a moment of crisis if not protected.

“Conferences like this are not just symbolic, they are spaces where activists from different regions can exchange tactics, build alliances and recharge emotionally,” she said.

“In a time of global backlash against gender and LGBTQI rights, we need these networks of care and resistance more than ever.”

The conference is hosted by Wesnet, the national peak body for specialist women’s domestic and family violence services alongside the Global Network of Women’s Shelters.

While each country represented had a different approach to women’s safety, with one shared goal all attendees could benefit from each other’s knowledge, Wesnet chief executive Karen Bentley said.

“There is always wisdom to share and we all work on new and emerging issues,” she said.

“We’ve got the commonality of how prevalent gender-based violence is across the world.”

Australia was in a privileged position as the government had committed to a national plan to end gender-based violence over the next 10 years.

Ms Bentley said more work would be needed to address the issue as a societal problem, not an individual one.

“Historically it’s been as if domestic violence is something that happens to you if you have a bit of bad luck,” she said.

“We want to broaden the discussion of gender-based violence to understand it as a whole of society problem and that it’s not just up to the survivors to fix it.”

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