The Asian Network of Women’s Shelters and the Garden of Hope Foundation invite speakers who will be in New York for NGO CSW67 to join us on the in-person parallel event on the 10th of March for their sharing of experience, insights, challenges and prospects. The organizer team is exciting to meet with speakers in person in NYC!
The global women CSOs’ major event CSW67 & NGO CSW67 will take place from the 6th to the 17th of March, 2023 in New York City in the United States with a primary theme of “Innovation and technological change, and education in the digital age for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.” This year, NGO CSW67 opens in-person parallel events for organizers to apply after three years when Covid-19 first hit globally.
The Asian Network of Women’s Shelters joins with the Garden of Hope Foundation to host an in-personparallel event on the 10th of March at 10:30 a.m. EST.
Technology-facilitated and digital gender-based violence are increasing across Asia due to rapid digitization. Much of the violence women experience offline is replicated online but has evolved in more complex and diverse forms. Research from the UN indicates that survivors rarely report digital violence in fear of reprisals from perpetrators and social repercussions and a lack of confidence in the judicial process.
CSOs play crucial roles to mediate among stakeholders to tackle this issue. We invite CSOs across Asia to share their experiences, research statistics, and challenges in helping survivors, advocating for legislation reform, and online safety for women and girls.
We will be at New York City to discuss this issue. Please come join us. We will see you there.
Rebecca Loewen – Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking, Canada
Emily Schwartz – North Dakota Human Trafficking Task Force, USA
Elsa Simón Ortega – Por la Superación de la Mujer, Mexico
Joan – GABRIELA, Philippines
Margarita Guille – Red Interameriana de Refugios, Mexico
Staffed by:
Ashley Slye – National Network to End Domestic Violence, USA
Patricia Vargas – Catholic Social Services Alberta, Canada
Canada
In Canada, shelters continued to provide support with certain regulations after COVID-19, although they had to work hard to ensure people knew they were still open. Rural and remote communities were hard to reach, as well as people who have limited technology. Some shelters saw a decrease, while others saw an increase, “but we know violence hasn’t just disappeared”
Canada is now moving towards loosened restrictions, although there are still uncertainties about future funding for services.
United States
COVID has exacerbated the situation for vulnerable people. Job losses and home isolation has put stress on relationships, leading to increased domestic violence. The lack of control and structure can also be a trigger for survivors by reminding them of when they were trafficked. Traffickers are also taking advantage of unsupervised youth as schools are closed and young people are spending more time online.
Polaris (national helpline) has seen a 40% increase in calls since March, yet many victims unable to access telehealth options for services due to lack of infrastructure (North Dakota is very rural). Emily has been focused on promoting service availability to survivors and building resilience in employees and survivors with trauma support resources
Mexico
Mexico is a country that is not only the origin of a lot of migrants, but also one that migrants transit through, and receives many migrants with millions of people entering and leaving the southern border. Migrant caravans have increased. Many women who have not received their refugee status or equivalent, are vulnerable to human trafficking. Furthermore, when families sell children younger than 10, the government does not count this as human trafficking. Police forces need to be detecting human trafficking at the border, but they have not been committed to doing this and government is turning a blind eye.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has 60% increase in gender-based violence (although there is little data available). Superación de la Mujer is trying to identify these victims and provide services and legal protection for them.
Philippines
The Philippine Government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic involves a strict lockdown with no mass testing. The majority of filipinos cannot afford to go to the doctor or get tested.
The lockdown has restricted women’s mobility and access to urgent services and justice. Over 4,000 cases of violence against women have been reported during COVID, but the real numbers are most likely much higher. Victims of trafficking will often not report to police, as police will go after them but not after the traffickers themselves. To end trafficking, Joan believes that we need to look to root of the problem
Global Network of Women’s Shelters Helpline Project
As mentioned on the webinar, GNWS is collecting the national helpline for every country so victims and their friends and family have a place to find accurate support. Even if your country doesn’t have a national helpline, we want to know! In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also asking about text, chat, and email helplines. Please take a few minutes to complete this brief form so we can continue to update our list of helplines. If you have already completed the form, thank you so much. Your information is greatly appreciated!
Ashley Slye – National Network to End Domestic Violence, USA
Anthony Carlisle – Garden of Hope, Taiwan
Thailand
Matcha works at the Thai/Myanmar border and she works with stateless people in Thailand. In Thailand, indigenous groups are marginalized – they are not given ID cards so they cannot travel, work, or get an education. If girls can’t go to school, they often get married at underage. Matcha has tried for the past 15 years to ensure that girls go to school. During this time, 4,000 girls have learned about human rights and over 1,000 of them went to university.
COVID has caused the indigenous populations to run out of food, have no money or access to health care. Many cannot go to hospital because of language barrier or because they cannot pay hospital fees since the Thai healthcare system doesn’t cover these people. Four people have died within her community already this month. Matcha wishes to launch a fundraising campaign to raise money for the family of COVID victims. She is also seeking help from the government and planning to visit Parliament with an indigenous girl to request them to take action in response to the emergency and prevent the deaths of more native people during the pandemic.
Lebanon
Racism and prejudice towards refugees has resurfaced during the pandemic. Syrians are accused of bringing COVID to Lebanon. Furthermore, the lockdown has isolated Syrian women refugees from essential services.
Syrian women refugees caught in domestic violence situations are unable to leave their abusers because of the pandemic. Atrocities, such as honor killings, have increased since the outbreak. Even if she didn’t have COVID, men didn’t want women to live for 14 days with strange people in isolation without having access to her, leading to cases of femicide or threatening to kill her.
Currently, the asylum system in Lebanon is overwhelmed. Embassies consider that the crisis is not their problem and will not pay for the return tickets for refugees’ to their countries if they’re deported. In response to the crisis, ABAAD has made food kits with some essential items, and included a booklet with hotline numbers and advice on how to deal with domestic violence.
Sweden
Sweden hasn’t had the same kind of lockdown as other countries but hasseen differences with women who seek help. The shelters are quiet with less visits and phone calls. ROKS have a close relationship with the police and the reports are lower than usual. Violence is mostly digital, sexual violence and cases of prostitution where young women have either been offered/forced.
Elderly women are also at risk because they don’t have social media and thus cannot access support networks, such as the chat for women’s shelters or the new app. ROKs have requested money from the Swedish Government to build up resources and help women post pandemic.
Kenya
The Kenyan Government’s response has involved a curfew, but not a full lockdown. A lot of people have lost their jobs, Kenya is largely driven by informal sector employment so that’s been tough for the economy.
There has been a huge number of cases of sexual and gender based violence., with a 40% increase since March (this is the number of reported cases from the hotline and police stations). However, the true situation is expected to be much worse because domestic violence is normalized and often under-reported.
In the slums, social workers say they have 4 cases a day of domestic violence. 65 girls interviewed in a slum said they had experienced/heard about domestic violence. Transactional sex has drastically increased to pay for food. Teenage pregnancy has drastically increased – one county had 4,000 cases of teenage pregnancy from what the government was able to collect. Kenya has also seen an increase in child marriage as families struggle with finances, so girls are seen as a source of income. The government’s response has been to ban pornography because they believe this is the cause of teen pregnancies.
There is only one government-funded shelter in the country, the rest are run by NGOs. Gender based violence ends up falling by the wayside as the government prioritizes the COVID response. Rescuers can’t rescue women after curfew. Nafula is currently trying to reach grassroots organizations to give more aid to these women.
After natural disasters we know the risk of exploitation rises. What we don’t know is how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact the risk of exploitation. This webinar will discuss preparing for the aftermath of the pandemic, ideas for reducing exploitation of vulnerable/targeted populations, and ways NGOs can support exploited individuals.
15 July 2020
7:00 PM Washington, DC | 12:00 AM London, UK | 2:00 AM Istanbul, TU | 4:30 AM Mumbai, IN | 7:00 AM Hong Kong | 9:00 AM Sydney, AU
Global Network of Women’s Shelters Helpline Project
As mentioned on the webinar, GNWS is collecting the national helpline for every country so victims and their friends and family have a place to find accurate support. Even if your country doesn’t have a national helpline, we want to know! In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also asking about text, chat, and email helplines. Please take a few minutes to complete this brief form so we can continue to update our list of helplines. If you have already completed the form, thank you so much. Your information is greatly appreciated!
Vera Vieira – Associação Mulheres pela Paz (Brazil)
Ranhee Song – Korea Women’s Hotline (South Korea)
Cindy Southworth – National Network to End Domestic Violence (United States)
Maria Yusuf – Association for Women’s Sanctuary and Development (Ethiopia)
Staffed by:
Ashley Slye – USA
Patricia Vargas – Canada
Brazil
Vera shared a pharmacy initiative that involves over 10,000 participating pharmacies across the country. The concept is simple yet effective: when a woman goes to a pharmacy and writes x on her hand, employees are trained to call the police and bring the woman to safety.
South Korea
Ranhee talked about the pandemic situation with a focus on domestic violence. In South Korea, since only 2.3% of cases of domestic violence are reported to police, it is hard to judge whether cases increased or decreased; nevertheless, Ranhee believes that there has been an increase in cases as the ratio of domestic violence counseling rose from 26% in January to 40% in March.
Handling and bringing justice to domestic violence cases also face the challenge of deep-set attitudes and judicial barriers in South Korea. Emotional abuse is not recognized as “abuse” within Korea’s judicial system, and yet the rate of emotional abuse is four times higher than that of physical abuse. Rather punishing the abusers, physical abuse cases are usually dealt with through counseling. Even if incidents of domestic violence are reported, most of them are disposed of or filed as “household protection case”. Ranhee concludes that, during a global pandemic, Korea may be relatively safe from COVID-19, but not from domestic violence.
United States
Cindy shared the Women’s Helpline Project, which aims to create a worldwide women’s safety net. The initiative will involve a global database that would help women find resources for domestic violence that could be filtered by country or by topic (e.g. for LGBT women, migrant women, etc.). Taiwan is on the list of countries that have shared data with the helpline database. Furthermore, Facebook is partnering with UN women to start a list of domestic violence helplines: facebook.com/safety/domestic violence resources
Vera shared a pharmacy initiative that involves over 10,000 participating pharmacies across the country. The concept is simple yet effective: when a woman goes to a pharmacy and writes x on her hand, employees are trained to call the police and bring the woman to safety.
Ethiopia
12 shelters across the country, servicing 110 million people, have closed due to COVID-19. The association has opened a quarantine shelter where women can stay for 14 days – if they are negative they could be transferred to other shelters. This quarantine shelter is always full and domestic violence cases have increased. An emergency court room has been opened that can process domestic violence cases Media attention on the shelters has also led people to raise funds to support.
After natural disasters we know the risk of exploitation rises. What we don’t know is how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact the risk of exploitation. Questions that will be addressed in this webinar include: Is there evidence that the pandemic has increased human trafficking? What has been the experience in different parts of the world? How can we be more vigilant to stop exploitation of victims? And what lessons can be shared to prevent vulnerable people falling into the hands of organized crime? This webinar will discuss preparing for the aftermath of the pandemic, ideas for reducing exploitation of vulnerable/targeted populations, and ways NGOs can support exploited individuals.
1 July 2020
10:00 AM Washington, DC | 3:00 PM London, UK | 5:00 PM Istanbul, TU | 7:30 PM Mumbai, IN | 10:00 PM Hong Kong | 12:00 AM Sydney, AU
Global Network of Women’s Shelters Helpline Project
As mentioned on the webinar, GNWS is collecting the national helpline for every country so victims and their friends and family have a place to find accurate support. Even if your country doesn’t have a national helpline, we want to know! In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also asking about text, chat, and email helplines. Please take a few minutes to complete this brief form so we can continue to update our list of helplines. If you have already completed the form, thank you so much. Your information is greatly appreciated!
Marcella Pirrone – Donne in Rete contro la violenza (Italy)
Ang Jury – Women’s Refuge (New Zealand)
Staffed by:
Ashley Slye – US NNEDV
Anthony Carlisle – Taiwan
As governments push to lift lockdowns, there are fears of a resurgence in COVID-19 cases and other unforeseen consequences. Meanwhile, other regions are becoming new epicenters. These uncertainties create evolving challenges for women’s shelters and other organizations working to protect survivors of violence. In this webinar, we will assess the current situation for the shelter movement, with a lead-off presentation from UN Women’s Asia-Pacific Programme, and follow up with updates from shelter networks around the world.
UN Women
Melissa Alvarado, Ending Violence against Women Programme Manager at UN Women shared services for Violence against Women and the Impact on CSOs (civil society organization) Amid COVID-19 in the Asia and the Pacific Region.
UN Women conducted Rapid assessment on the impact of COVID-19. UN Women found that almost three quarters (71%) of CSO respondents said that COVID-19 was affecting them somewhat or very negatively. More than 60% of CSOs participated in shaping the government’s response to COVID-19. Only 15% of the respondent organizations are in full operation. More than 70% of them are forced to stop part of the provision of their services for women temporarily, and 12% have had to temporarily suspend activities altogether.
CSOs reported increased cases of VAW, with violence by family members representing the highest increase at 42%. The lockdown and quarantine measures mean that millions of women are confined with their abusers, with limited options for seeking help and support. Women, girls, and vulnerable groups are at an increased risk of GBV during public health outbreaks, such as COVID-19, due to limited input and control in decision making on a household’s response and shifts in social safety nets, mobility, and access to information/ services.
CSOs are focused on the survival and immediate needs of beneficiaries and struggling to maintain a presence and service delivery. The work of CSOs/WROs on access to services, prevention, and legislation or policy change is on hold. CSOs are expanding the reach of their services and prevention programming on violence against women and girls.
Italy
Marcella shared about the situation in Italy. Italy is moving to the next phase of the pandemic. Violence against women hasn’t been addressed enough by the government. Furthermore, women are absent among the experts who are specialized in crisis response. Therefore, the stakes for women under violence are often being neglected. The ongoing crisis will be the foreseeable increasing number of economically disadvantaged and socially underprivileged women. Long-term and systemic policies on empowering women are also essential. Marcella also pointed out that data collection is crucial so that people can be well prepared for future crises.
New Zealand
Ang also shared about the relatively good situation in New Zealand. They haven’t seen significant growth of women seeking help. But it is for sure that number will rise inevitably. It may be the perfect environment for violence against women after the lifting of lockdown due to the economic damage caused by the virus. New Zealand’s government is closely working with shelters. They listen to the needs and advice of the civil societies, which helps a lot in alleviating the crisis. Three weeks ago the refugee sector received three-year funds from the government.
We know vulnerable people are being hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the human, social and economic effects of the crisis deepen, women and children are at greater risk of falling victim to human traffickers. Questions that will be addressed in this webinar include: Is there evidence that the pandemic has increased human trafficking? What has been the experience in different parts of the world? How can we be more vigilant to stop exploitation of victims? And what lessons can be shared to prevent vulnerable people falling into the hands of organized crime? In addition to presentations on the main topic, the webinar will also include updates from around the world on the COVID-19 situation and gender-based violence risks.
1 July 2020
10:00 AM Washington, DC | 3:00 PM London, UK | 5:00 PM Istanbul, TU | 7:30 PM Mumbai, IN | 10:00 PM Hong Kong | 12:00 AM Sydney, AU
Global Network of Women’s Shelters Helpline Project
As mentioned on the webinar, GNWS is collecting the national helpline for every country so victims and their friends and family have a place to find accurate support. Even if your country doesn’t have a national helpline, we want to know! In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also asking about text, chat, and email helplines. Please take a few minutes to complete this brief form so we can continue to update our list of helplines. If you have already completed the form, thank you so much. Your information is greatly appreciated!
Asian Network of Women's Shelters 