Country Women’s Association: Women’s safety at centre of conference

Often associated with scones and fundraisers, this iconic organisation is calling for social change in regional Australia.

The Country Women’s Association’s Victorian branch is set to call on government to step up and address women’s safety as a key issue affecting communities across regional Australia.

The well-respected organisation will host its state conference this week, and CWA Victoria president Jennifer Nola said the issue of women’s safety was an increasing issues in some parts of regional Australia, with cost of living pressures adding strain to many families.

“When the cost of living goes up, there’s always a correlation between that and family violence issues,” Ms Nola said.

“We’ve seen an increase in requests for welfare assistance. People’s coping skills don’t seem to be as adequate. It’s all interrelated.”

It comes after the CWA’s NSW branch earlier this month unanimously carried an urgent motion supporting measures to curb escalating rates of gendered violence, including a change to bail provisions for family violence offences.

The Weekly Times also revealed this month family violence affected regional Victorian women and children at a higher rate than metropolitan families, with rural women attacked and hospitalised 12-times more often than their city counterparts.

The situation was described as “horrendous” with rural leaders calling for an urgent boost to state government funding for more intervention programs.

Ms Nola said despite the severity of the issues on the agenda, the organisation remained dedicated to “try and improve things”.

“We will have further developed our advocacy response … we’ll be gathering the examples as to how these situations play out in the real world instead of a blanket statement, and we’ll start lobbying local government and local parliamentarians,” she said.

The conference will also focus on other social issues, including homelessness, women’s safety, and food security.