Outcomes of a regional Pacific meeting addressing violence against women and girls concluded with strategic steps and an urgent work plan to address the issue over the next two-years.
The week-long seventh Pacific Women’s Network on Violence Against Women (PWNAVAW) meeting, which ended last Friday, brought together practitioners and policy-makers in the field.
Key areas
They identified key areas that needed improvement in order to provide better support systems for womens and girls who have or are currently experiencing any form of violence:
- 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
- Urging Pacific governments to put global conventions on women and girls into practice
Network members agreed that to move commitments forward specific actions needed to take place within sorcery related violence, culture and religion, disability and organising male advocates for womens humans rights.
The committee also called for the meeting to be held every two years, instead of the usual four-years, because of the breadth of work that remains.
More than 60 women and men from around the Pacific attended the meeting which was held in Singatoka from the 12th-19th August, 2016.
It is organised by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) and funded by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
