The Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health and the University of Melbourne provided the following submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry on Elder Abuse. The submission draws on recent research showing that elder abuse is gendered and immigrant and…
Leadership in action
What does it mean to be a leader? Is it something you’re born with or a skill that you develop? Are there differences in how a leader is conceptualised across different cultures and different workplaces? It’s an opportune time to…
Why do we need a diverse violence prevention workforce?
It’s a well-known statistic by now: nearly half (46.8%) of the Victorian population and almost a quarter of Victorians speak a language other than English (ABS 2011). The reality today is that cultural diversity is closer to mainstream than marginal. Logically, you…
NETFA Forum 2016
This month we had the good fortune of spending a day surrounded by a group of amazing women who know a great deal about women’s rights, health and female circumcision. On International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting,…
Marginal or marginalised?
If we were in any doubt about it, this month has clearly demonstrated that the urgent need to prevent violence against women has well and truly reached both public consciousness and government attention. The international campaign for 16 Days of…
Power to our future selves
Imagine being a 13 year old migrant girl for the day. Imagine how your 13 year old self might make sense of the 24/7 world of social media, schoolyard banter and popular culture, before the onset of adult cynicism and weariness. If…
60 seconds with Maria Osman
UN delegate and national living treasure What are you enjoying doing at the moment? Since leaving my role as a senior public servant last year I’ve been spending time reconnecting with grass roots women’s groups especially in remote communities as…
Beyond the 'Whanel'
Learning new words can be so gratifying, especially when the word puts a name to a phenomenon that you regularly experience but haven’t quite articulated as a ‘thing’. The new word that crossed our desks this month was ‘manel’, the…
Why breastfeeding is a feminist issue.
In August we celebrated World Breastfeeding Week (yes, it exists!), which this year aimed to highlight the importance of empowering women globally to combine breastfeeding and work and to make workplaces more breastfeeding-friendly. For women who breastfeed, this empowerment…
Caring for our unsung heroes
As the nomination period draws to a close for our next Australian of the Year, we at MCWH would like to acknowledge the great 2015 line-up. There have been multiple factors lifting the visibility of violence against women and children,…