UN Women’s “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” campaign, taking place this year from November 25th, focuses on the theme “UNITE! Invest in Preventing Violence Against Women and Girls.” The campaign, using the hashtag #NoExcuse, calls for investment in preventing violence against women and girls and transforming societal norms.
UN Women kicks off a UN-wide annual campaign on 25 November, the International Day to End Violence against Women.
Over the following 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, we are asking governments, institutions, and citizens to show us how much the world cares about ending violence against women and girls under the theme “UNITE! Invest to prevent violence against women and girls“.
Led by civil society groups around the world, the campaign is supported by the United Nations through the Secretary General’s initiative, UNITE by 2030 to End Violence against Women.
Some 736 million women — almost one in three — have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, at least once in their lives. More than four in five women and girls (86 per cent) are living in countries without robust legal protection, or in countries for which data are not readily available.
No country is within reach of eradicating intimate partner violence. Despite the scale of the problem and these worrying trends, financial commitments to violence prevention remain limited. Investing in preventing violence against women and girls is crucial to achieving gender equality by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.
We urge everyone to call on leaders worldwide to increase investments in preventing violence from happening in the first place.
Every effort invested in preventing violence against women is a step towards a safer, more equal, and prosperous world.
Advocacy objectives
The theme and activities of the UNiTE campaign this year is Invest to Prevent Violence Against
Women & Girls. It calls upon all UNITE networks, civil society and women’s rights organizations,
organizations working with men and boys, the UN system, the Generation Equality Action
Coalitions government partners, human rights defenders, schools, universities, private sector,
sports clubs and associations and individuals to step up and support different prevention
strategies to stop violence from occurring in the first place
Key advocacy objectives are:
- Invite everyone to be an ally in preventing VAWG through taking a stand publicly, engaging in activities and events to raise awareness of VAWG in their communities.
- Mobilize all member states to allocate national budget to prevent violence against women and girls, including through their own national action plans and prevention across education, health, and social protection sectors by incorporating VAWG prevention.
- Advocate for increasing ODA towards prevention of VAW, in line with national priorities and to support policy formulation, if feasible.
- Call for greater support, increased long-term, sustainable investments from states, private sector, foundations, and other donors to autonomous women’s rights organizations working to end violence against women and girls in all their diversity.
- Advocate for private and public sector investments on workplace policies and The Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender Based Violence is mobilizing governments, civil society, women’s rights and youth led organizations, international organizations, philanthropies and the private
sector to take concerted action and deliver concrete change for women and girls worldwide, through four concrete actions: (1) Strengthening laws and policies and increasing resources; (2) Scaling up evidence driven prevention programming; (3) Scaling up comprehensive, accessible and quality services for survivors; and (4) Increasing support and resources to autonomous girl-led and women’s rights organizations to play their leadership role in ending violence against women and girls. Building on the momentum at the Generation Equality midpoint moment in September 2023, the Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence will mobilize action to amplify the UNiTE campaign’s call to UNiTE! Invest to Prevent Violence against Women & Girls. - Mobilize member states, development partners, philanthropies, private sector, universities
and all actors to join the Generation Equality Action Coalition on GBV and make tangible
policy, programmatic and financial commitments to accelerate transformative action to end
all forms of gender-based violence against women and girls, including through: o Investing in
the collective commitment on prevention, and - Joining the collective commitment of the Action Coalition on GBV and the Action Coalition on Economic Justice and Rights on gender based violence and harassment in the world of work and to ratify and implement the ILO Convention 190.21
Source: UN Women