About the 5th World Conference of Women’s Shelters (5WCWS)
For the first time ever, the largest global gathering of advocates, experts and leaders working to end gender-based violence is coming to Australia.
The 5th World Conference of Women’s Shelters (5WCWS) will be held from 15–18 September 2025 at ICC Sydney, and bring together more than 1,000 delegates from over 60 countries – including frontline practitioners, advocates, policymakers, researchers, and people with lived expertise – to share strategies, research, and practical tools to end violence against women and children.
Themes
- Connect: with colleagues in Australia and around the world committed to ending gender-based violence.
- Challenge: systems, attitudes, and behaviours that drive violence against women and gender-based violence.
- Change: drive transformational actions needed to end all forms of gender-based violence locally and globally.
Topics
- Anti-oppression and inclusion: inclusion and intersectionality.
- Breaking down the barriers and transformational change: dismantling structural drivers of GBV and intersections with social, racial, political and economic inequalities.
- Justice and rights: anti-violence work, from prevention to response and recovery.
- Knowledge and research: qualitative and quantitative ethical research both current, new or what is needed in the future.
- Recognising all forms of GBV, challenges and strategies: challenges, opportunities and strategies for change.
- Resourcing and sustainability: importance and diversity of resources needed to prevent and respond to gender-based violence.
- Safety, wellbeing, recovery and healing: safety and wellbeing of the workers and volunteers.
- Technology: Harnessing tech to end GBV
- The continuum of approaches: actions needed across prevention, early intervention, and response.
- Working together: across different settings with different resources and expertise.
Media Access & Press Passes
To apply for a media pass, please submit your details via email to [email protected] including:
- Full name and organisation
- Role and area of focus
- Media outlet(s) you are representing