PANACEA 2020

We’re a global feminist agency and our priority is advancing gender equality and ending violence against
women. We do that through 3 core areas – research, creative communication and policy and advocacy work.
So for example, we do a lot of research to try to understand violence against women and also to evaluate
programs and policies to see what’s working in different settings. We then work with a lot of global
organisations like the UN and Word Bank to help set the policy agenda, and then we also do work on social
media to ignite the conversation around feminism and gender equality and how to end violence.
It sounds like extremely rewarding work yet at the same time the content of the work is also deeply upsetting.
How do you manage the nature of the work?
That’s a good question. The focus of our work is predominantly on primary prevention, so trying to address the
root causes and we take a very positive, strength based, empowerment approach. So even though the content of
the work is very heavy, because we are working to create positive change, that keeps the work positive and
engaging and it feels like you’re doing something meaningful. For me, I feel like I’d be more depressed if I wasn’t
doing anything towards the issue. It’s a deep passion for me and for members of my team so I think as hard as it is
some days, we all feel better for actually trying to do something to end violence against women.
I think we also see change happening, so while from a distance it can look like this issue is overwhelming, that’s
not true, we are actually seeing rates of violence decrease in some countries, we are seeing programs that are
actually having an impact on the ground and we are seeing women and girls all over the world leading that
change which is really inspiring. So most of the time I feel inspired more than I feel upset, but we do have to take
care of yourself as well because it is hard work.
You know when I started in this field about 20 years ago, no one was talking about violence against women and
now it’s on the global agenda. There’s the sustainable development goals which all countries have to report
on. In my career I have seen massive change, and that’s motivating.
There’s been some concerning reports of increased violence in the home during COVID-19 lockdowns around
the world. Can you expand upon this?
Sure. There definitely is, and while we still don’t have all of the data, what we do know is that in Australia
we’re seeing increased rates of reporting around violence against women. We also know that during the
lockdown, unfortunately home isn’t always the safest place for some women and children. It also makes it
harder for these people to seek support. We’re also seeing diversity in the types of violence that women are
experiencing, for example technology facilitated abuse and more controlling behaviour.
The pandemic is also impacting gender equality through risk of catching the virus. In the vast majority of
countries, a higher percentage of front-line workers (health workers for example) are women, putting these
women at a higher risk of being infected with COVID-19.
On top of this there have been interruptions of supply chains for medical products. For example women’s access
to contraception is being impacted because the world’s largest IUD factory has shut down. Shipping
interruptions are also worsening the issue. So there’s a huge number of flow on effects that we’re just starting
to get a better sense of, but we really need to collect more data to get a better understanding of the situation.
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