UNAIDS Statement on the International Day to End Violence Against Women and the Launch of 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-Based Violence: Unite! Invest to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls
What will it take for the world to end gender-based violence?
The answer is crystal clear: governments must empower and fund women-led organizations worldwide. We must let communities lead.
One in three women worldwide has experienced violence, often from someone she knows. Women who experience violence are also more at risk for HIV. As Ayu Oktariani of the Indonesian Positive Women Network says, “The perception that women living with HIV are ‘bad women’ makes people normalize violence against them.”
Gender-based violence has indeed become normalized across the globe. Yet it is a gross violation of human rights on an epic scale. As such, it requires an epic response.
But today, a staggering one in five countries worldwide has no laws providing enforceable penalties against gender-based violence. And only 1 percent of gender-focused government aid is directed to women-led organizations.
It is time for governments to recognize violence against women for the crime it is and increase funding for those who know best how to tackle it at its roots – women-led organizations.
Across the globe, women-led organizations are on the ground, providing support to women at risk, advocating for policy change, and shifting societal attitudes toward marginalized groups of women such as sex workers, trans women, lesbians, and women with HIV. Research shows that the single most critical factor driving both global and domestic policy change in ending violence against women and girls is the presence of a strong and autonomous feminist movement.
Millions of women worldwide are actively engaged in ending gender-based violence. For example, in Haiti, Refuge des Femmes d'Haiti supports women and girls affected by gang violence in Port-au-Prince. In Peru, Miluska Vida y Dignidad and Trans Organizacion Feminista help cis and transgender sex workers by training police and providing legal aid and other services. In Zimbabwe, SASA! mobilizes communities to respond to HIV-related violence towards women.
Many of these women work as volunteers or for low pay in organizations that are often under-funded and with insecure financial futures. It is time to stop our reliance on the good will of women to make change happen in the face of violence against them.
UNAIDS calls upon governments and international agencies to support and invest in women’s rights and service organizations – the unsung heroes of the movement to end gender-based violence – at levels that reflect the enormity of this pandemic of violence.
This is key to ending violence against women and girls in all their diversity. It is also key to ending AIDS.
