NOVEMBER 25. STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Listen to a "Fistful of Love", by Antony and Lou Reed |
International Day for the
Elimination of Violence Against Women
White Ribbon Day |
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On 17 December 1999 the United Nations adopted Resolution 54/134, which designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The Resolution calls on governments; relevant bodies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system; other international organisations and non-governmental organisations to organise on that day activities designed to raise public awareness of the problem of violence against women. It noted that endemic violence against women was impeding women's opportunities to achieve legal, social, political and economic equality in society.
The term violence against women refers to acts capable of causing physical, sexual or psychological harm, whether in public or the private life of women.
The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is also linked to the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, which arose from the Global Campaign for Women's Human Rights. In June 1991, a forum involving 23 women from 20 countries called for this campaign in an effort to highlight the connections between women, violence, and human rights from 25 November to 10 December. The time period encompasses four significant dates: 25 November; 1 December (World AIDS Day); 6 December (Montreal Massacre anniversary, 14 women engineering students were gunned down for being feminists); and 10 December (Human Rights Day). |
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The Mirabal Sisters
Prior to the United Nations Resolution, 25 November was observed in Latin America and a number of other countries around the world as International Day Against Violence Against Women. With no standard title, it was also referred to as "No Violence Against Women Day" and the "Day to End Violence Against Women".
It was first declared by the first Encuentro Feminista for Latin America and the Caribbean held in Bogota, Colombia in 1981. At that Encuentro women systematically denounced gender violence from domestic battery, to rape and sexual harassment, to state violence including torture and abuses of women political prisoners. The date was chosen to commemorate the lives of three sisters from the Dominican Republic (Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa Mirabal) who were violently assassinated in 1960 during the Trujillo dictatorship. Referred to as the "Inolvidables Mariposas" (Unforgettable Butterflies), both the memory of the sisters and the day itself stand as global recognition of gender violence and the victimisation of women.
More info on the Mirabal Sisters
Print the story  (3 pages)
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A Novel:
In the Time of the Butterflies
by Julia Álvarez
Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 1994
344 pages
The film
was released in 2001 |
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