Pacific women's network on violence against women agrees on work plan
SUVA (24 August 2016) -- The Pacific’s seventh major regional meeting on ending violence against women concluded in
Sigatoka, Fiji on Friday (19 August) with participants making commitments and calling for urgent action on specific
issues over the next two years.
At the conclusion of the meeting – organised every four years by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre and funded by
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – the participants agreed that because of the scale and breadth of
the work that remains to be carried out in Pacific countries, the meeting should be held every two years instead of
four.
The meeting canvassed a range of issues relating to violence against women and girls and heard from practitioners and
policy-makers in the field, which included: increased services for survivors of violence against women and girls;
improving access to justice through better working relationships with police forces and sensitive and urgent response
from police personnel; increased and ongoing training in gender equality, violence against women and human rights for
front-line health workers, and; urging Pacific governments to put global conventions on women and girls into practice.
The outcomes statement included an agreement to always keep women at the centre of all prevention and response programs.
For example, the preferred term is ‘violence against women and girls’ because it names the problem and is centred on
women’s experiences of violence.
Outcomes from the meeting included specific actions Network members could take to move the commitments forward,
including in the areas of working with faith-based organisation, women and girls with disabilities, sorcery-related
violence, protection against violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity, culture and religion, perpetrator
programs and male advocates for women’s human rights.
The 7th Pacific Women’s Network Against Violence Against Women (PWNAVAW) Meeting took place from 12-19 August 2016 at
Warwick Resort with more than 60 participants working in the area of preventing and responding to violence against women
and girls. The next meeting of the PWNAVAW is expected to be convened in August 2018.
Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, as the FWCC's biggest and longest-running donor, provides funding
support for the Pacific Women's Network Against Violence Against Women meetings.
ENDS