What does it take to prevent gender-based violence against migrant and refugee women? It’s a big question. But in Australia over the last 10 years, there have already been over 100 projects working to tackle this question, many led by migrant and refugee women*. These projects have created spaces where communities can challenge rigid gender roles, promote respectful relationships, and share their strategies to stop violence before it starts. They’ve taken place in communities, workplaces, universities, schools and online, and have included women, men, and gender diverse people. The variety and scope of these projects is enormous, and yet many of them have one thing in common – limited and short-term funding.
For the majority of the projects we surveyed, funding was limited to 2-year cycles or grants of less than $25,000. That’s been the case for many of our own prevention projects. Through this limited funding, however, we’ve engaged migrant women who work in aged care to design strategies to promote gender equality and respect at work. We’ve provided health education sessions to migrant and refugee women on how family violence can take many forms, and that support is available to address violence even if it is not physical. And we’ve worked to try and ensure mainstream regional services are aware of the challenges migrant and refugee women face in Australia, including the impact of visa conditions and barriers to accessing support services.
Through each of these programs, we were able to build a precious trust with the migrant and refugee women we worked with and foster a collective determination to build solutions together. Participants often share their ideas for how to grow projects and increase their impact. They’ve told us how they wanted to “share information about gender equality during get togethers, parties, and at the temple”, that they “want this information to circulate in the family and community”, and that they were “determined to empower their daughters to become strong and independent women”.
But unfortunately, short-term funding can mean much of this energy dissipates, jeopardising the foundations of trust built through these projects. Research has shown that prevention works best when it can build consistently for generational change, rather than in one- or two-year cycles. Similarly, for migrant and refugee communities who have been scapegoated or have faced racism, this trust and confidence can be understandably fragile. But most of all, short-term funding cuts short the vision and determination many women develop through prevention programs, which could be harnessed to build a better world for everyone.
Long-term funding could support migrant and refugee women to dependably instigate healthy relationships education in their own communities, at events and places that make sense for them. It could support them to implement policies, procedures and even services within their workplaces that enable gender equity and respect. It could support migrant and refugee families to foster healthy relationships and equality with their children as they grow up, through collaboration with schools, universities and community centres. It could fund migrant and refugee women to develop resources, podcasts, movies, plays and music that share their vision of gender equality, in their languages, and on their terms.
But crucially, it could also support advocacy to change the systems that leave migrant and refugee women more vulnerable to violence. While long-term funding for primary prevention programs within migrant communities is necessary, primary prevention is also about transforming the systems that reinforce inequality and precarity. This means addressing the injustices embedded within our visa system that leave many women with limited access to public services, or dependent on partners or employers that may not treat them with the respect they deserve. Ultimately, it will take supporting communities, and transforming systems, time, and sustained funding to prevent gender-based violence in the long-term.
*Based on MCWHs internal review of the PVAW landscape for migrant and refugee communities
This article was first published in edition #151 of The WRAP on November 2025.