{"id":529170,"date":"2026-03-09T16:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T16:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/529170\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T16:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T16:49:14","slug":"australia-gender-equality-essential-for-national-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/529170\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia: Gender Equality Essential for National Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Sydney) \u2013 The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/asia\/australia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Australian<\/a> government should strengthen gender-focused approaches across all crisis responses, Human Rights Watch said today following International Women\u2019s Day. The authorities should acknowledge that gender equality is essential to global peace, security, and justice by supporting women-led organizations and ensuring that women are meaningfully included in decision making.<\/p>\n<p>Human Rights Watch in February 2026 made a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/sites\/default\/files\/media_2026\/03\/2602%20HRW%20Submission%20for%20inquiry%20on%20gender%20equality%20as%20a%20national%20security%20and%20economic%20security%20imperative%5B89%5D.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">submission\u00a0<\/a>to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade inquiry addressing gender equality as a national security and economic security imperative. Human Rights Watch highlighted the gender-related impact of conflict, crisis, and climate change; the dangerous erosion of the basic principles of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security; and the need to push for a gender-sensitive UN crimes against humanity treaty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInternational Women\u2019s Day is a key opportunity for the Australian government to be thinking about gender equality, both domestically and abroad,\u201d said\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/about\/people\/daniela-gavshon\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniela Gavshon<\/a>, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cHuman Rights Watch\u2019s submission to the Joint Standing Committee emphasizes that undermining gender equality violates international human rights law, fuels instability, and weakens countries\u2019 resilience to crises.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amid rising militarism, attacks on women human rights defenders, and efforts to roll back gender rights across the globe, Australia\u2019s leadership in advancing and defending the Women, Peace and Security agenda is paramount, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n<p>The Australian government should support the development of an international treaty on crimes against humanity, which provides a crucial opportunity to strengthen international criminal law protections for women and girls, and support such as creating the crime of gender apartheid. Australia should expand asylum pathways for women and girls fleeing persecution and adopt a feminist foreign policy that places the rights of women and girls at the center of all foreign policy, defense, and national security decisions, Human Rights Watch said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAustralia has the tools to effectively promote women\u2019s rights around the world, including a foreign minister committed to gender equality and having an ambassador for gender equality,\u201d Gavshon said. \u201cThe Australian government can become a global leader on women\u2019s and girls\u2019 rights by making them a more prominent part of its foreign policy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Sydney) \u2013 The\u00a0Australian government should strengthen gender-focused approaches across all crisis responses, Human Rights Watch said today following&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-529170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}