Safer Girls Safer Women

A future where people with disability, inclusive of all identities, experience social and sexual safety everywhere and always.

Mel Harrison sits in her wheelchair delivering a speech at the Safer Girls Safer Women 2022 symposium, next to an Auslan interpreter signing.

The Project

The Safer Girls Safer Women Project is a 3-year project to develop a National Framework and Best Practice Guidelines for sexual health, respectful relationships and consent education.

The 2022 Safer Girls Safer Women Symposium launched the project. The event was a conversation led by women, girls and non-binary people with disability about what safety means to them. See videos from the day to hear from the speakers.

The project builds on Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT’s (SHFPACT) existing social and sexual safety program, SoSAFE!.

SoSAFE!

Photo of 13 people standing or using wheelchairs, smiling for a group photo at the 2022 Safer Girls Safer Women symposium.

Why girls and women*

The project is funded by the Office for Women and the Department of Social Services as a gender equality initiative. Social and sexual safety is a gendered issue and our name, Safer Girls Safer Women, responds to that.

However, we acknowledge the limitations and exclusions of this language.

Our work directly supports people with disability who identify as women, girls, feminine identifying, non-binary, and people raised female. As we co-create this culture of safety, our community as a whole becomes safer, inclusive of all gender identities and expressions.

Learn more about the intersectional barriers for women* with disability at Women with Disabilities ACT.

Office for Women

Social Services

Women with Disabilities

What is safety?

2022 Symposium

A powerful conversation led by women, girls and non-binary people with disability. Their lens on what safety means to them informs the ongoing work of the project.

Click here to view the video alongside a transcription.

Across Australia

Safer Girls Safer Women is a workforce capability development project for all states and territories. We will listen to and amplify the voices of people with disability and work towards safer communities together.

Project structure

This project is managed by SHFPACT and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.

A panel of speakers using chairs and wheelchairs speak on stage at the 2022 Safer Girls Safer Women symposium.

This project is managed by Sexual Health and Family Planning ACT and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.

The intersex-inclusive Progress Pride flag.

The Safer Girls Safer Women office is located on the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Traditional Custodians of Country and their continuing connection to land, sea, culture and community. We encourage any First Nations visitors to this site to share their voice with the project by contacting us.