Violence towards any person is unacceptable and more action is needed to ensure all people are safe from violence.

Women and men are at greater risk of different types of violence, so we need different strategies for each. This doesn’t mean one is more important than another.

Challenging men’s violence is working to keep both women and men safe because:

• The majority of street and family violence that boys and men experience is also at the hands of men
• Men perpetrate the majority of all violence in Australia against women, children and other men.

Women and men both experience intimate-partner violence. However, the prevalence, severity and impacts are greater for women than for men, so it requires more attention.

Women are also far more likely than men to experience ongoing violence, require medical attention, fear for their lives, and to be murdered.

City of Melbourne’s work to prevent violence against women simply continued after it introduced its first PVAW Strategy and includes providing a range of counselling and support services to those experiencing family violence, raising awareness of the issue and making a public commitment in 2018 to prioritise gender equality in all current and future Council planning, policy, service delivery and practice.

The impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on women in particular means now is an appropriate time to review our work in this area and ensure we’re doing our best to address the most prevalent issues of the day.

We aim to deliver the key themes outlined in the plan over three years however each year we will be reviewing our work and developing a new plan to ensure we’re working to address the most prevalent issues of the day.

The Gender Equality Act 2020 requires all local councils, along with the Victorian public sector and universities, to take positive action towards achieving workplace gender equality, and to consider and promote gender equality in policies, programs and services that interface with communities.

The Gender Equality Act 2020 came into effect on 31 March 2021, and City of Melbourne’s first steps are to complete a workplace gender audit and design a gender equality action plan.

Creating Communities of Equality and Respect will be implemented in parallel with the gender equality action plan, which is why our internal work to prevent violence against women is not duplicated in this plan. These two action plans are complementary. Together they reflect our local government model for preventing violence against women – internal and external facing work.