Page 560 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 30 March 2021
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Supporting women into leadership roles is another essential element of achieving gender equality. This is why the ACT government continues to have a target of 50 per cent female representation on all ACT government boards and committees, and I am proud to say that, as of January this year, we are almost at that target—49.2 per cent.
Public schools continued to support female students in 2020 by implementing programs to drive cultural change in schools and the broader community. For example, Positive Behaviour for Learning is a framework that schools use to get everyone on the same page to create safe and supportive learning environments for all students. Given that women were more impacted by remote learning requirements, effective support from schools was essential in supporting women in the ACT in 2020, as was making sure that the ACT’s amazing public schoolteachers were safe at work.
Schools also regularly question and challenge stereotypical ideas about gender roles, while supporting students to enter non-traditional career pathways. This can be seen through the Girls in STEM grants, which support girls and young women to enter study and employment in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The safety of women and girls in their homes and in public continued to be a priority in 2020. For many women, the most significant concern is safety in their own homes, for themselves and their children. In 2020 the ACT government continued to work with family violence support services to prevent family violence and to ensure that victims were supported and protected.
This work included establishing a multi-agency family violence hub, which supports key stakeholders to liaise and share information so that they can develop proactive intervention strategies and reduce the risk of future offending; and partnering with the Domestic Violence Prevention Council’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reference group to work towards fulfilling recommendations in the We don’t shoot our wounded and the Change our future. Share what you know reports.
These are just a few of the many things that the ACT government and ACT community delivered in 2020 to continue supporting women and girls. There is a clear commitment across government and the community, but there is still a long road ahead to achieve real and lasting change and to gain equality for women and girls.
In closing, I would like to respectfully remember the 55 women who were killed due to violence against women in 2020 in Australia, and acknowledge the Counting Dead Women Australia researchers of Destroy the Joint for providing this figure and counting these deaths. Violence is never okay, and these deaths remind us of how pervasive gender violence is, and how crucial it is to challenge harmful gender norms.
These women remind us of the importance of working together, calling out gender discrimination when we see it, continuing to support all members of society, and striving for gender equality for all. As Aboriginal visual artist, activist and academic Lilla Watson said:
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