A social worker and paediatric nurse who worked on Nauru and an Australian human rights lawyer hav e attacked Australia's treatment of asylum detainees at the conference.
Speaking before thousands at the conference and on a live stream, they compared Nauru to Guantanamo Bay.
And they called on the world to increase pressure on the Australian government to close the nation's offshore detention centres.
Human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson has told the Women in the World conference in New York she believes Australia will eventually bow to international pressure.
"Australia certainly reacts to international pressure and international discussions about Australia. And so I would urge everyone here to urge your governments and to start conversations about this. I think that we can change it, and I think that we can close those camps."
The three-day conference is aimed at addressing issues affecting women and girls around the world.
In a segment called Australia's Shame, the three women talked of crimes and indecencies committed against women and children in the camps.
They spoke of shower blocks with no doors, where male guards would watch women and children bathing, and of sexual assaults and rapes endured by the detainees.
Once a child protection worker on Nauru, Viktoria Vibhakar recounted her experiences with women she said had been assaulted on the small island.
"There was a young woman that I worked with, and, one day, I came into the camp and she approached me. She was crying, she was trembling, and she said to me, 'I not safe, I not safe.' And I could hear the distress in her voice, it was choking her ... And what she said to me was, she had this special needs child, she was a single mum, and she got a lot of help from the security guards during the day in parenting her son. But at night-time, they were approaching her for sexual favours."
Alanna Maycock, once a paediatric nurse on Nauru, spoke of women she said had been raped or had no access to proper sanitation.
"One mother that I met was menstruating for about two months, and she'd had no referral to a doctor on the island. She was using material from her tent to hold the bleeding because she had no access to sanitary products. And another mother I met had been raped there. We referred her to one of the psychologists on the island, and, after the psychologist had seen her, we said to the psychologist, 'So how did it go? What happened?' And the psychologist said, 'Why did she not cry out? She's wearing flirtatious and provocative clothing.' She was wearing shorts and a tank top, similar to what I would wear in the Australian summer."
Ms Robinson, the human rights lawyer, says Australia is ignoring the plight of vulnerable women in detention centres.
"We are failing to protect these vulnerable women and children from persecution. It's a systemic system of cruelty which is explicitly designed to deter refugees from coming to Australia, and it's an international disgrace."
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau also spoke at the conference and provided a stark contrast to Australia's stance on asylum seekers.
"Canada feels that we can show how to do more, specifically for Syria, both with the billions of dollars in development aid we sent, but also by welcoming in refugees."
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