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Shobha Shukla
Despite growing backlash against women’s rights and feminist movements globally, it gives hope to see that the world’s largest gathering on gender equality this year, the Women Deliver Conference 2026, was attended by around 6000 people from 189 countries globally. The city that hosts this meet, Narrm, or Melbourne, in Australia, has an inspiring history of resistance that runs through its lands and waters, carried by generations of First Nations (indigenous) leaders, feminists, and activists who have fought for justice, self-determination, and collective care.
Melbourne also hosts the Asia Pacific regional office of Public Services International (PSI), an over a century old global union federation for workers in public services, including those who work in social services, healthcare, municipal services, central government, and public utilities.
Corporatizing care is regressive.
Rooted in the work PSI does on women’s rights and feminist analysis, one of its progressive contributions has been to expose the way in which care has been corporatized. Social protection is so critical for advancing women’s rights as well as the rights of gender-diverse and indigenous peoples,” said Kate Lappin, regional secretary of Public Services International Asia Pacific.
“We do draw on progressive trade union histories that have shown that the way to achieve change is through trade union power, and quite frankly, through disruption. We have not gained the rights through ‘quiet advocacy,’ through just ‘requesting changes’ to the law, or even through just deep analysis. It has really been achieved through our capacity to join analysis with action,” said Kate Lappin.
Kate was speaking at the inaugural session of SHE & Rights Live at the Women Deliver Conference in the D03 Exhibition Space, co-hosted by the Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), Women Deliver, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), the Asia Pacific Media Alliance for Health, Gender and Development Justice (APCAT Media), and CNS.
The oldest continuously operating trade union building in the world is in Melbourne.
“The oldest continuously operating trade union building in the world is in Melbourne, which celebrates its history – both feminist history and labor rights history – of being the first place to achieve the eight-hour day in 1856 – 170 years ago!” said Kate Lappin. Melbourne is also the first place globally to achieve a living wage.
“It was a sexist living wage at that time, setting a wage for men and assuming women were dependent on them, but it had established a living wage as a principle. Now, Melbourne is among the first places globally leading on pay equity so that wages can be increased for workers in the care sector,” said Kate. Pay equity recognized the devaluation of women’s care work, not through a male comparison but through recognizing the devaluation of the majority of care work done by women historically.
Kate also highlighted the work done by PSI and other trade unions in Melbourne and the state of Victoria, Australia, on paternity leave, as well as looking at reproductive health through the lifecycle to address the needs women, non-binary people, and men might have in their reproductive lives, such as accessing in vitro fertilization (IVF), menstrual leave, and menopausal leave, among others.
Community health work is work.
The presence of PSI at this meeting became more important because, despite the historical role of progressive trade unions in advancing rights, there were hardly any unions on-site.
PSI, as a member of the Global Care Alliance, amplified the call to recognize community health work as work.
Kate emphasizes the critical need to collaboratively build enough power to address global problems and impact change for development justice. Progressive local movements and social struggles have built people’s power. On the other hand, there is an unprecedented monopolization of power, which is concentrating in the hands of a tiny minority – whether that be big tech companies or the billionaires and the governments that serve them. We need practical ways to disrupt this global power through alliance-building. We need to achieve the level of solidarity – the critical threshold -to achieve system change.
So-called ‘development’ projects violating rights, communities, environment
“Indigenous women, children, and LGBTQIA+ communities alongside the Myanmar border area are deeply affected by so-called ‘development’ projects and extractive industries,” said Matcha Phorn-in, executive director of Sangsan Anakot Yaowachon and a proud lesbian feminist, woman human rights defender, and trail runner. “We as indigenous communities are resisting upcoming ‘development’ projects such as hydropower dams in river diversions and rare earth mining operations. Such activities are causing environmental degradation, water contamination in the river, human rights violations, environmental crises, and exacerbating gender inequalities and injustices.”
Countries like Thailand do not recognize indigenous peoples. “When recognition of indigenous peoples and communities is not there, then government and the development sector fail to implement the most important principle of free, prior, and informed consent,” said Matcha. “Indigenous peoples, especially women and gender-diverse peoples, are not included in decision-making processes at all levels.”
Matcha demands that gender equality and the human right to health must be central to all development policies, investments, and projects.
She also called for full recognition of Indigenous peoples and their rights and the implementation of free, prior, and informed consent in all development projects. There must be accountability for human rights violations and environmental harms caused by these projects and business activities.
Walk the talk on #HealthForAll and #LeavingNoOneBehind.
Matcha demands another non-negotiable: an inclusive and nondiscriminatory healthcare system and public services, which must include full access to gender-affirming care as well as sexual and reproductive health and rights services. We must move beyond symbolism when it comes to legal and policy reforms so that all people in all their diversities can have full access to public health services and social protection – in a rights-based manner.
With growing legal and judicial harassment against human rights defenders, Matcha stressed the dire need to protect human rights defenders, especially women and LGBTQIA+ human rights defenders.
“These development projects must not come at the cost of our bodies, our land, and our dignity,” said Matcha.
We demand not just reproductive health but sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.
“With the current right-wing uproar, we need to remember that we demand sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice, and not just reproductive health,” said Dr. Harjyot Khosa, a gender justice and global health advocate.
Referring to the 70th UN Commission on the Status of Women, convened in March 2026, Dr. Harjyot Khosa said, “Regressive states are attempting to reverse the established and agreed-upon language on bodily autonomy and human rights.”
“We need to stop the use of pseudoscience, which is being used to wrongly justify these rollbacks. We also need to decolonize development finance. We need to have radical inclusivity,” said Dr. Harjyot Khosa in SHE & Rights Live from the Women Deliver Conference 2026. “We need to pivot intersectionality.”
Dr. Harjyot echoed Kate Lappin’s call for collective action powered by progressive social movements and people’s struggles: “We need to have a unified front against the hierarchical oppression that we are facing today.”
