Media Release: Women’s Safety Summit

Sep 13, 2021

The Government is preparing to finalise a national plan on violence and women’s safety that will set our country’s direction and framework for the next 12 years. The Women’s Safety Summit was held on September 6 and 7. Unfortunately, the Summit was scheduled for the Jewish New Year, making attendance by our organisation impossible.

Nonetheless, the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia welcomes the Summit. At the same time, we are calling for urgent solutions. We need to ensure that the Summit does not just function as an opportunity to delay active interventions. There are clear actions that need to be taken both during and following the Summit. We call upon the government to conclude with a clear commitment to action and funding.

NCJWA stands together with organisations across the country in a joint call for 12 actions as the starting point for government. and supports the joint call for governments to:

  1. Build stronger foundations in our community to prevent violence before it starts.
  2. Prioritise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community led initiatives. 
  3. Increase capacity across our communities to recognise and respond to early signs of abuse.
  4. Increase and extend investment in specialist support services.
  5. Increase and expand the focus on sexual violence.
  6. Shift the burden to the person who uses violence.
  7. Recognise children and young people as victims in their own right.
  8. Expand research to build evidence-based services.
  9. Reform the Family Law system.
  10. Tailor initiatives and responses to community needs.
  11. Expand victim-survivor choice and control through expanded pathways for support and accountability beyond police and criminal courts.
  12.  Invest in programmes with long-term funding, to give them enough time to work.

NCJWA emphasizes that

  1. Violence against women does not discriminate by race or religion.
  2. We stand firmly with the Safety Summit to address structural inequalities and reduce violence.

We call for

  • Clear action
  • A transformative agenda where issues are addressed and solutions are reached
  • Urgent government attention and funding
  • Specialist services

We further call for the Government to take into account the needs of religious and other minority groups when scheduling events of this nature. Failure to do so is discrimination against members of that religious group.