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According to the United Nations, one in three women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, a global pandemic which has inspired the international body to mark Nov. 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Created in 1999 when the U.N. introduced Resolution 54-134 to officially inaugurate the day, Nov. 25 was created to raise awareness of the ongoing crimes against women worldwide.
The date was selected by the U.N. General Assembly to fall on the same day three of the four Mirabel sisters were assassinated in the Dominican Republic by the Caribbean nation’s former dictator Rafael Trujillo.
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The organization, as well as women and activists around the world, are demanding that more be done to address the issue, calling for better policies to ensure the safety of women and a change to the culture of patriarchal violence and aggression.
The United Nations campaign UNiTE has invited people to “Orange the World,” a color chosen to symbolize a brighter future without fear of violence. The international campaign includes “16 Days of Activism” around the themes of gender and patriarchy, which ends on International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.
“As we launch the ‘Orange the World’ campaign today, we already know that tuk-tuk drivers in Cambodia, soccer stars in Turkey, police officers in Albania, schoolchildren in South Africa and Pakistan, and hundreds of thousands of others around the world are all, in their own way, taking a stand,” said U.N. Executive Director of Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
Groups around the world will take to the streets to raise awareness for the campaign, including Argentina where at least 1,108 women were killed between 2008 and 2014.
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#Argentina Las mujeres vuelven a las calles para decir #NiUnaMenos #NoalaViolenciadeGenero https://t.co/g83eG8JsXr pic.twitter.com/TCR81xOtvd
— Feminicidio·net (@feminicidio)
November 25, 2015
Major protests are also occurring in Istanbul, Madrid, Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where femicide has now reached epidemic levels.
#25KasımdaKadınaSiddeteHayır #İst. Tünel'den yüzlerle yürüyüşe başlayan kadınlar GS Meydanına binlerle ulaştı. pic.twitter.com/jtvFIKJq4b
— dokuz8 (@dokuz8haber)
November 25, 2015
Participamos en la vigilia en conmemoración a las mujeres que han muerto de manera violenta #NoMasViolencia #DEVCM15 pic.twitter.com/NvWxFTCBgS
— PDH Guatemala (@PDHgt)
November 25, 2015
Una vez más, Madrid se pinta de violeta para denunciar la #ViolenciaContralasMujeres #25N #VivasNosQueremos pic.twitter.com/6G8mpOS9hP
— Isa Mastro .·. (@IsaMastro)
November 25, 2015
Women in Honduras Presidential House in the International Day Against Violence to Women @telesurenglish pic.twitter.com/5hkjlipGjo
— Gerardo T teleSUR (@GerardoTteleSUR)
November 25, 2015
Other countries have chosen to mark the day in more creative ways.
In Ecuador, for example, Los Angeles-based artist Suzanne Lacy has implemented a project called Cartas de Mujeres (Women's Letters), where hundreds of men will read letters written by female victims of gendered violence. In Ecuador, roughly one in six women—some 3 million people—have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence.
