“Our goal is clear: an end to these inexcusable crimes - whether it is the use of rape as a weapon of war, domestic violence, sex trafficking, so-called “honour” crimes or female genital mutilation/cutting. We must address the roots of this violence by eradicating discrimination and changing the mindsets that perpetuate it.”
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Message for the International Day for the
Elimination of VIolence against Women
25 November 2009
A girl sits on a bundle of firewood in the Abu Shouk camp for displaced people, near the city of El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. Many women and girls are harassed or sexually abused when they venture out to fetch wood or water. UNICEF Photo/NooraniBy resolution 54/134 of 17 December 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and invited governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize activities designed to raise public awareness of the problem on that day. Women's activists have marked 25 November as a day against violence since 1981. This date came from the brutal assassination in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican ruler Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961).
On 20 December 1993 the General Assembly, by resolution 48/104, adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.