Today is the international marker for champions around the world to remember, educate and act on violence against women.
Officially designated by the United Nations on 17 December 1999, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is a day where organizations and governments around the globe rally together to raise public awareness on the scale and true nature of rape, domestic and other forms of violence against women.
Selected in remembrance of the Mirabal sisters, Patria Mercedes, María Argentina Minerva and Antonia María Teresa, who were assassinated in 1960, 25 November has been marked as a day against violence by women’s rights activists since 1981.
This day also marks the start of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute (WGLI) sponsored by Rutger University’s Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991. WGLI participants chose the dates, November 25 and December 10 (the close of the 16 days), which is International Human Rights Day, to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights.
For more info about how you can help stop violence against women, visit Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women Campaign.