Violence Against Women
The most devastating drought for decades is currently facing the Horn of Africa. Somalia has been the worst hit and, as is so often the case, famine has led to armed conflict and instability in this fragile region.
But for Somali women and children, it is not just hunger and gunfire they need to fear.
The UN has reported this week that women and girls fleeing famine and fighting in Somalia are being raped or abducted and forced into marriage by armed groups as they try to reach the safety of refugee camps in Kenya.
It is an impossible choice to make: stay and starve, or flee and run the risk of unthinkable brutality.
Armed conflict and disasters do not cause gender-based violence.
But so often the circumstances of war increase its incidence, with shocking results for the world's most vulnerable people.
The UNFPA State of the World Population Report last year said, "women rarely wage war, but they too often suffer the worst of its consequences".
Indeed, the devastating reality is that women and girls are too often the strategic targets of armed conflict.
The truth is that warfare is changing.
In the past, soldiers mainly fought other soldiers and they did so across national borders. Today, conflicts are more likely to be about combatants gaining control within states and breaking the will of ordinary people in the process.
Rape, or the threat of it, is aimed at breaking the will of women and girls. Unwanted pregnancies, diseases including HIV, rejection and ostracism by families and communities are common legacies of rape.
Women's bodies have become part of the battlefield of war.
Hundreds of thousands of women were estimated by the UN to have been raped during the Rwandan genocide and thousands in the former Yugoslavia shows how brutal and savage the quest to break a will can be.
Against this backdrop of shocking degradation, history has shown that women are often our greatest hope in preventing violence in communities and rebuilding their nation for the future.
We have evidence in our own region that women can be effective peace-builders.
Women played a central role in ending the conflict in Papua New Guinea by directly negotiating with members of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army.
In the Solomon Islands, it was women who brought together the main groups in the ethnic tensions and to build a culture of peace.
When the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 10 years ago, it was widely celebrated. For the first time it recognised the impact of conflict on women and girls, their increased vulnerability to sexual violence in conflict and their exclusion from peace agreements and post conflict reconstruction.
Australia has been behind Resolution 1325 from the start.
We recently reaffirmed our commitment at the UN Security Council Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security in New York. But the real test of our support lies not in New York but in places where conflicts continue to destroy the lives of women and their communities.
Today I will release a draft National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security that will guide our efforts to implement the resolution. This will build on the good work our Defence personnel and police are already doing to make women and children in areas of conflict safer.
Part of this work includes Australia joining with UN agencies to improve the way peacekeepers can deter and respond to conflict-related sexual violence.
Across Asia and the Pacific, in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Australian Government is supporting opportunities for women to gain the skills and experience they need to play active roles in peace negotiations and in post-conflict reconstruction.
In East Timor, Australia and UN agencies are funding a gender resource centre which offers leadership training to encourage women to play a bigger role in the electoral process, particularly as candidates. The centre has also given training to members of the East Timor Parliament to make the national budget more sensitive to the needs of women.
Of course, in Australia, the Government has recently announced plans to open up all roles in the Australian Defence Force to women, including combat roles. Suitability for service will be based on physical and intellectual ability, not on gender.
Recent events in Somalia have reminded us of the triple tragedy that women face in times of conflict.
It also reminds us that as a government, we need to commit to do more to prevent these abuses and ensure that we are contributing to a safer and more humane world for all people.
If you are interested in being part of the Consultation on the National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, more information is available here.
Kate Ellis is the Federal Minister for the Status of Women, Employment Participation and Childcare.