For 16 days, activists, governments, youth groups, communities and survivors raise their voices to confront a truth we already know but rarely address with enough courage – that violence against women and girls remains one of the most persistent and devastating human rights violations of our time. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is not just a campaign. It is a refusal to look away, a declaration that silence is complicity, and a reminder that change, real, sustained change, requires all of us.
A Movement Rooted in Courage and Memory
The campaign’s origins are steeped in resistance. It began in 1991 at the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute, where activists chose to anchor the movement between two symbolic dates: the assassination of the Mirabal sisters, three women who stood fearlessly against dictatorship, and Human Rights Day on 10 December. Their story of courage and sacrifice became a beacon for a global movement that insisted violence against women was not a domestic matter or cultural inevitability, but a human rights violation demanding urgent action.
Why the Crisis Persists and Why It Cannot Be Ignored
Three decades later, the crisis has not abated. Nearly one in three women experiences physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, a statistic that has barely shifted. Girls endure harassment and abuse at ages when they should be discovering safety and possibilities. Women in public life, politicians, journalists, human rights defenders face targeted violence designed to silence them. Around 840 million women globally have experienced partner or sexual violence during their lifetime, a figure that has barely changed since 2000, yet the world still suffers from insufficient investment in addressing these root causes, and a staggering lack of accountability. The cost of inaction deepens with every generation.
WAGGGS: Listening to Girls, Leading with Girls
It is within this landscape that the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) has emerged as a uniquely powerful voice. Its involvement in the 16 Days is grounded not in institutional obligation but in listening: when girls and young women were asked what mattered most to them, violence topped the list. They do not want to be framed as victims; they want tools, platforms, and support to lead change in their communities.
This commitment led to the launch of Stop the Violence in 2011, one of the first global efforts to focus specifically on violence against girls. Each year since, WAGGGS has chosen themes informed by lived experience; mapping unsafe spaces, challenging victim-blaming, elevating survivor stories, addressing digital safety, spotlighting the profound impact of menstruation on girls’ safety and dignity and most recently leading #GenerationJustice to ensure girls and women can be protected and access justice.
A Movement that Learns, Builds and Acts
In 2024, we turned the spotlight on the often unseen pressure points of power – digital spaces, social norms, and the hidden rules that govern girls’ lives. The theme urged movement to understand violence not as an event but as a culture.
Focusing on period-related violence and bringing it into the global discourse is one of WAGGGS’ most significant contributions. Menstruation, though natural, often triggers stigma, exclusion, bullying, period poverty, early marriage and an increased risk of sexual violence. In some communities, the onset of menstruation increases a girl’s vulnerability rather than her confidence. By naming “period violence,” through its 2023 campaign, WAGGGS steered a long-overdue conversation about dignity, safety and the hidden structures that shape girls’ lives.
Education as a Tool for Liberation
Ending violence does not begin with punishment; it begins with understanding. Education, especially non-formal education, equips girls with the language to identify harm, the confidence to assert their rights and the leadership skills to challenge injustice. It also invites boys and young men to redefine masculinity and question norms that perpetuate harm. WAGGGS has championed this form of transformative education for decades, knowing that empowered girls do not simply safeguard their own futures; they reshape the societies around them.
Accountability and Resourcing: The Missing Pieces
Awareness and education alone will not end gender-based violence. What is urgently needed is accountability and resourcing, the central message of this year’s global theme. Too often, national plans sit on paper without funding. Survivors are asked to navigate systems that question their credibility. Women’s rights organisations remain drastically underfunded, despite being the very groups driving long-term solutions. Without systemic change, budgets, laws, services and enforcement, the violence will continue.
A Call to Courage and Collective Action
The 16 Days of Activism is, at its heart, an invitation to courage. It asks us to speak openly about issues we have long been taught to whisper. It asks communities to question norms that harm girls. It asks governments to put resources behind their promises. And it asks every individual to recognise the part they play, whether through challenging sexism, supporting survivors, advocating for menstrual equity, or amplifying girls’ voices.
Ending violence is not the responsibility of one campaign or one organisation. But the 16 Days remind us that the path forward is collective. It is built through conversations within our communities, policies shaped at the government level, educators teaching consent, journalists exposing injustice, parents listening differently and young people refusing to inherit silence.
Let These 16 Days Be a Beginning, Not a Ritual
If violence is rooted in systems, systems can be rebuilt. If violence thrives in silence, then our voices, persistent, unapologetic and united, remain our strongest tools. And if the world has not changed quickly enough, that is not a reason to withdraw; it is a reason to recommit. As this year’s 16 Days campaign draws to a close, let us remind those occupying echelons of power that the safety and dignity of women and girls are not optional aspirations; they are fundamental rights.
This campaign is a clarion call for all of us to ask one simple, transformative question: What can I do today to make the world safer for even one girl?
Because when millions ask that question together, we are not simply observing a campaign.
We are reshaping the future.