The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign – 2014

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign that starts every year on 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and ends on 10 December, Human Rights Day. The campaign aims to raise awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international level. Organisers encourage community activists, NGOs, businesses and governments to join a local campaign or lead their own focusing on:

• Increasing women's safety
• Highlighting the nature and prevalence of violence against women
• Raising awareness of violence against women as a human rights issue
• Showing solidarity among women around the world
• Promoting women's leadership
• Lobbying government
• Strengthening local work to tackle violence against women

This year’s theme is ”Let’s challenge militarism and end violence against women”. The campaign highlights three cross-cutting priority areas: 1) Violence Perpetrated by State Actors; 2) Proliferation of Small Arms in Cases of Intimate Partner Violence; and 3) Sexual Violence During and After Conflict.

In the lead up to, and during, this year’s campaign, participants highlighted the systemic nature of gender-based violence and militarism which encourages inequality and discrimination and prioritises weapons spending over funding for quality education and healthcare and safe public spaces. The culture of militarism builds on and protects systems of power by controlling dissent and using violence to settle economic, political and social disputes. Militarism draws on and perpetuates patriarchal models of political, economic, and social domination of people by a small number of elites and privileges violent masculinity as acceptable behaviour. The 16 Days Campaign focus on the intersections of gender-based violence and militarism is an effort to work toward a more equitable and peaceful world.

There is an official facebook page dedicated to this year’s campaign https://www.facebook.com/16DaysCampaign

The 16 days of activism campaign also aims to build momentum for next year’s 20th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, at which global leaders committed to ending violence against women in all its forms. To know more:
http://beijing20.unwomen.org/en
http://www.dawnnet.org/feminist-resources/advocacy/beijing-20
http://awid.org/eng/Library/FEMNET-Beijing-20