The global 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is a key international moment to call for an end to violence against women and girls. It runs from 25^th November (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) until 10^th December, Human Rights Day.

The campaign was started by activists at the inauguration of the Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991. It is used as an organizing strategy by individuals and organizations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.

In support of this civil society initiative, the United Nations Secretary-General launched in 2008 the campaign UNITE by 2030 to End Violence against Women, which runs parallel to the 16 Days of Activism.

In support of this campaign, the United Nations Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 initiative calls for global action to increase awareness, galvanise advocacy efforts and share knowledge and innovations to help end all types of violence against women and girls. In 2023, the UNiTE campaign theme is Invest to Prevent Violence against Women & Girls.

In every country and culture, more action is needed to ensure women in all their diversity live free of violence and coercion. Health impacts of violence can last a lifetime, affecting physical, mental, sexual, and reproductive health. WHO plays a key role in bringing attention to and responding to violence against women as a public health, gender equality and human rights issue.

Myths and Facts (Realities) of SGBV

Myth 1

Men force women sexually because they cannot control themselves

Facts

• Societies where there is a high rate of rape are societies where roles of men and women are unequal;
• Where men are encouraged to be aggressive;
• Where violence is glorified; and
• Where there is war.

Myth 2

If she didn’t scream, fight or get injured, it wasn’t rape

Facts

• Women in rape situations are legitimately afraid of being killed or seriously injured and so cooperate with rapists to save their lives.
• Rapists use many manipulative techniques to intimidate and coerce women.
• Women in rape situations often become physically paralyzed with terror and shock and are unable to move or fight.

Myth 3

Rapes are committed by strangers at night in risky areas

Facts

• More than half of all rapes are committed by persons known to the survivor
• Date or acquaintance rape is very common
• Women are often raped in their homes
• People can be raped at any time of the day or night and in any location

Myth 4

Men who rape are crazy

Facts

• Most rapes are premeditated and planned because they are not strangers
• Men who rape are mostly ordinary men – they are your friends, your family and your neighbors
• Rapists believe they have the right to have sex with women whenever they want so do and not see their act as rape

Myth 5

Women provoke rape by the way they dress or act

Facts

• Dressing attractively and flirting are not an invitation to be raped
• Only the rapist is responsible for the rape.
• Any woman or child even babies can be raped – women and children of all ages, from all religions and ethnic groups.
• Women are not raped because of what they wear or where they go, they are raped because a man is taking out his aggression on women in general.
• Women get raped going about their everyday lives.
• Women never want to be raped.
• This is a way of blaming women and justifying male aggression. To be raped is to lose control and to have another person use you as they wish. No one wants this.