International Women’s Day 2026
International Women's Day Toolkit 2026
This International Women’s Day, Women's Health in the South East (WHISE) and Kara Family Violence Service (Kara) are coming together to explore how prevention and response can work together to create fairer, safer and more just systems for women and girls.
This toolkit that will help you get involved this year, which includes:
- IWD 2026 themes
- What "balancing the scales" looks like in practice
- What partners can do
- IWD event
- Calendar of events
- Resources
- Social media tiles and captions
IWD2026 themes
Globally, International Women’s Day calls for rights, action and justice for all women and girls. In Australia, this means balancing the scales — transforming justice systems so equality is the rule, not the exception.
This includes:
- Removing unjust laws and policies
- Addressing cultural and structural barriers
- Ensuring justice systems are inclusive and accessible
- Preventing violence while responding to it
What “balancing the scales” looks like in practice
- Prevention and response working together
- Lived experience shaping laws, services and systems
- Immediate support alongside long-term change
- Collaboration across health, justice, community and government
What partners can do
Partners are encouraged to:
- Share IWD messages with your colleagues and teams. Using the messages together, consistently generates momentum. The IWD messages that we share are guided by the United Nations and the IWD movement. Check out our social media assets below
- Attend the event hosted by Kara and WHISE - coming together to share an experience, to be in each other’s company and be part of the global IWD campaign provides you with a sense of belonging to something bigger, of deepening your connections and relationships with like-minded colleagues, and is energising
- Attend events happening across the region
- Centre lived experience - check out WHISE's Lived Experience Framework
- Advocate for fair, inclusive systems
- Strengthen cross-sector partnerships
WHISE & Kara Event
To mark International Women’s Day 2026, WHISE and Kara are coming together to host a shared event that highlights the power of collaboration across the prevention–response continuum of violence against women.
Guided by the global UN Women theme Rights. Action. Justice. For all Women and Girls, and the Australian theme Balance the Scales, this event will explore how prevention and frontline response work together to create safer, fairer and more just systems for women and girls. It is an opportunity to reflect on where progress has been made, where barriers remain, and what real action looks like when we centre lived experience and work collectively across sectors.
Resources
- Lived Experience Framework - A framework for lived experience aims to be a guide for organisations and practitioners to safely and ethically embed lived experience across a wide range of work to strengthen primary prevention of gender-based violence practice.
- UN Women Australia - IWD resources available to download and share
- A Guide to Evaluating the Gender Pay Gap - This guide will support defined entities to evaluate their own gender pay gap and identify areas for improvement using data from the first workplace gender audit and subsequent progress audits.
- WHISE Intersectionality Guide - This Guide is an example of how to apply an intersectional approach and was developed to strengthen our internal learning and unlearning at WHISE; towards progressing gender equality for all.
Social media tiles
Caption:
Strengthening the legal rights of women and victim-survivors means taking action against all forms of family violence, including coercive control. As reforms progress in Victoria, our work with partners ensures these laws are implemented safely and effectively, supporting those who need protection most.
These reforms only protect women when prevention, response and support services are strong. By working with partners, we ensure laws translate into safety, accountability, and real change for victim-survivors.
Caption:
This International Women’s Day, join us in strengthening the full ecosystem that supports safety, justice and equality.
Keeping women and girls safe takes more than one approach. It takes a connected system where prevention, early intervention, response, healing and recovery, and legal protections work together.
When services are well-resourced, workforces are skilled, and lived experience informs change, protection is stronger and accountability is clearer.
Caption:
Justice systems are strongest when they reflect real lives.
When lived experience is centred across prevention, legal reform and frontline response, systems are better able to identify harm, reduce re-traumatisation and respond to the realities of violence, particularly for women who are too often excluded or overlooked.
Balancing the scales means shifting power, so women and victim-survivors don’t just speak into systems, they help shape them.
This International Women’s Day, support approaches that centre lived experience to build fairer, safer and more accountable systems. Use WHISE’s Lived Experience Framework to guide you: https://whise.org.au/assets/docs/whise_info/Lived-Experience-Framework-Sept-24.pdf
What is International Women's Day?
International Women's Day emerged from women's labour movements across North America and Europe in the early twentieth century. Simultaneously, women across nations were demonstrating for their rights: to vote, to work and to end discrimination on the job. The first Women's Days protested wars and often expressed solidarity with other activists.
In 1975, the United Nations began celebrating 8 March as International Women's Day.
Australia’s first International Women’s Day was held in 1928 in Sydney. Organised by the Militant Women’s Movement, women called for equal pay for equal work, an 8-hour working day for shop girls and paid leave. The next year the event spread to Brisbane. In 1931, annual marches were launched in both Sydney and Melbourne and both marches continue to be held today.
Since these early days, International Women’s Day has continued to grow. It is a day to celebrate women’s achievements and both highlight and work to address barriers that continue to perpetuate gender inequality.
Past Campaigns
Both the global and local Australian themes highlight the imperative to fund initiatives promoting gender equality and economic justice for all women.
Both the global and local Australian themes highlight the imperative to fund initiatives promoting gender equality and economic justice for all women.