3rd women conference in Netherlands

The 3rd world conference of women’s  shelters commenced on 2nd November 2015, at World Forum Hague. Attended by more than 120 countries under the banner ‘Connect & Act to End Violence against women’, the conference seeks to define clear strategies for economic independence of women survivors and a literal conversion of GBV to an industrial right. The first conference was held in Canada in 2008 and attended to by 50 countries and second one in Washington DC in 2012. In the opening ceremony. Among the key speakers is Queen Maxima, the wife of King Willem-Alexander of Netherlands. She cited Kenya women increased access to bank accounts as one of the greatest contributions in financial empowerment of women.

Major innovative interventions underway to addressing GBV include engagement of the housing corporations to detect and report cases of violence. In Kenya this could begin real estate developers  signing into commitment to report all incidences of GBV as soon as they happen and view such incidences not a loss of revenue but an opportunity to  developing safe neighborhoods.