Research by food relief organisation Foodbank says women in Australia were 50 per cent more likely to experience food insecurity than men. Its Hunger Report 2019 found a quarter of all women have experienced food insecurity in some form in the last 12 months.
It is the seventh Foodbank Hunger Report. It surveys 2000 charities and 1000 individuals from around the country who are experiencing food insecurity. CEO Brianna Casey said the report aims to better quantify and understand the growing social crisis of food insecurity.
Casey said: “We knew the situation was bad, but this year’s report confirms that it’s getting worse and the impact is skewed towards our most vulnerable women in the community.”
The report found events that make women more susceptible to food stress are different to those for men.
Women are “significantly more likely at some time in their lives to have experienced domestic violence or financial abuse or to have raised children on their own for an extended time” the report said. For men, food stress is more likely to be attached to not being unable to find a job for a long time.
Foodbank supplies food and groceries to more than 2400 charities and also provides regular breakfasts for students in 2000 schools across the country. As a not-for-profit organisation, Foodbank relies on governments, individuals, organisations, community groups and thousands of volunteers to fight hunger.
“In spite of the fact that Foodbank is now providing food relief for more than 810,000 people every month, what the report shows is that our charity network is still not meeting demand. There has been a twenty-two per cent increase in the number of individuals accessing food relief in the past year and only thirty-seven per cent of charities believe they are meeting the full demand in their communities” Casey said.
Casey has called on greater government action.
“This problem is clearly not going away in fact its impact on the health and wellbeing of our communities is only going amplify. What is required is a long-term, whole-of-government plan to tackle this crisis head on. We are calling for a commitment to introduce a National Food Security Strategy to ensure we achieve zero hunger in this country by 2030,” Casey said.
