21 August 2025

• Advocates and people with lived experience have welcomed the findings of South Australia's Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence.
• Violence survivors in SA who 'generously shared stories' hope to be heard in royal commission findings.
• When Alice reported her husband to SA police, they said ‘people fight’. But it was far more than fighting.
• Aboriginal initiative working to end domestic violence in the NT calls on community to take a STAND.
• Are most of the NT's landmark DV inquest recommendations already in place, as the government says?
• Anti-transgender activist Kirralie Smith loses appeal against apprehended violence order.
• Construction has commenced at an undisclosed Bendigo location of three new Haven Home Safe townhouses, which are planned to provide eighteen safe places for women and their children every year.
• ‘A whole spectrum of hatred’: women face increased violence in Milei’s Argentina as rights are eroded.
• US Department of State removes mention of gender-based human rights abuses in yearly report.
• Under Trump, US returns to treating violence against women as a ‘private matter’.
• Britain reassesses 'flawed' domestic abuse risk tool.

• The South Australian Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence has released its report.
• Harmful and discriminatory policing practices in family violence cases are "extremely frequent and widespread" across Victoria, according to a new report.
• Centre for Social Impact has published The state of the social economy in Australia.
• A new report by UN Human Rights details the human rights situation of women and girls in criminal justice detention.
• Sexual violence in conflict zones rose sharply in 2024, increasing by a quarter compared to the previous year, the UN reported.
• Afghanistan: Ten facts about the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis.
• Julie Inman Grant writes Wired for harm: how tech-facilitated abuse silences women and undermines peace.
• Listen to SBS Spice: Domestic Violence: The Consequences of Silence.
• Documentary recounts postwar sexual abuse of Japanese women.
• MSNBC reports How bent BLS data could fuel conservatives’ war on working women.
• Ms Magazine writes Trump, Republicans and antiabortion extremists are dismantling reproductive care for low-income women, funneling them into ideological clinics masquerading as health centers.

Events

• Registration is now open for the 5th Conference of Women’s Shelters (5WCWS), to be held in Sydney from 15-18 September 2025.
• The UNFPA and the Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) is calling for participants in the upcoming Global Online Expert Roundtable: No More Stolen Sisters – Confronting Violence Against Indigenous Women and Girls with Data, Dignity, and Justice.
• RMIT’s Grad Cert in Domestic & Family Violence invites you to a 1-day in person Policy and Practice Forum on Thursday 27th November 2025. Theme: Nine years after the Royal Commission - what has improved and what challenges remain?
  Find out more and register here.

Consultations

• Public consultation is now open on Australia’s draft National Report for our upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR). A draft report is available and comments are invited until 29 August 2025.
• The Mental Health Commission of NSW is leading the development of a new state-wide strategy to improve mental health and wellbeing and are inviting comments until 29 August 2025.
• The Australian Government is reviewing the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and is inviting submissions. Consultation is open until 24 October 2025.

Grants

• The NSW government is committing $100,000 to a new grants program for the 16 Days of Activism to support initiatives that prevent gender-based violence in NSW communities.

Jobs

• Our Watch is recruiting for a 1 year role as a senior advisor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Prevention. Can be undertaken from anywhere in Australia

Training and development

• Wesnet is offering technology safety training for SADFV professionals. Follow the link for dates and training descriptions.

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