Sunday, November 26, 2006

16 Days of activism against gender violence

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign that was started by the Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) in 1991. The 16 Days runs from November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women to December 10, International Human Rights Day to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasise that such violence is a violation of human rights.

This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including December 1, which is World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre in 1989, when 14 women students were massacred by a lone gun-man opposed to the affirmative action policies promoted by feminists at the University of Montreal.

Since it began, the 16 Days of Activism has been used as an organising strategy by women’s groups to call for the elimination of violence against women by:
  1. Raising awareness about gender based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels
  2. Strengthening local work around violence against women
  3. Establishing a clear link between local and international work to end violence against women
  4. Providing a forum in which organisers can develop and share effective strategies
  5. Demonstrating the solidarity of women around the world organising against violence against women
  6. Creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's sad to see gender based violence .. discrimination is the most common type of violence in this sense .. tsk ! but thanks for raising awareness.

Anonymous said...

Mind if i put a link to the post on my blog? Btw where do you find this stuff? Its really interesting!

Destitute Rebel said...

@TFL feel free to post a link, the more awareness the better. I found this while crawling the web.I knew about the 25th being international day for violence aginst women. didnt know about the 16 day campaign.