UN Women Bangladesh: 16 Days of Activism Newsletter 2020
This year the whole world was shaken by the unprecedented health and human crisis brought upon by COVID-19. Nationally as well as globally, it has been highlighted that COVID-19 has triggered a sharp increase in violence against women, particularly domestic violence, and in April the UN Secretary General called on UN Member States to step up efforts to address this “Shadow Pandemic”. The fight against GBV has become more urgent now than ever as we face the risk of decades of progress on women’s rights being reversed due to COVID-19. This year the 16 Days of Activism against GBV was commemorated under the theme Orange Your World: Fund, Prevent, Respond and Collect. This all-encompassing theme shows that an all-out 360-degree approach is needed to tackle GBV. To this end, UN Women worked with its partners to expose its root causes, highlight the importance of social norm transformation, promote redress, and advocate for legal and policy changes to create an enabling environment for an equal and just society. All though many of the 16 Days of Activism events took place virtually to ensure safety of participants, yet we managed to mobilize more than 12,000 people, conduct around 70 dialogues virtually and in-person in courtyards, refugee camps, university campuses, Deputy Commissioner offices and many other places, and reach over 700,000 people through social media.This newsletter provides a snapshot of these events.
As we continue to “Fund, Prevent, Respond and Collect” to end GBV, we count on you joining us to achieve a safer and more gender equal Bangladesh for women and girls.