International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 25 November

Published on 25 November 2021

“Globally, 1 in 3 women and girls experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, most frequently by an intimate partner”.

Since 1981, the 25th of November has been observed by women’s rights activists as a day against gender-based violence. The United Nations General Assembly formally designated 25 November as International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 19 years later in 2000.

The day is intended to amplify public awareness of the continuing and pervasive occurrence of gender-based violence at a global level. 

We shouldn’t require a formal and single date for governments, organisations, and the public to mobilise against the insidiousness of violence against women and girls but without one, how might we come to know, for example, that currently 49 countries have no laws protecting women from domestic violence? Or that in light of the COVID-19 pandemic (and the impacts of income loss, increased social isolation and forced cohabitation during lockdowns) sexual, domestic and family violence has intensified and manifested as its own shadow pandemic. 

UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has appealed to the global community to take heed of the impacts of this shadow pandemic to understand the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination impacting many women and girls - Urging the public to prioritise diverse female leadership in finding solutions and engaging men in the conversation.

On home soil, key conversations emerging from The National Summit on Women’s Safety, held over 6 and 7 September 2021, are akin to those occurring at a global level, particularly:

• The cruciality of financial freedom for women (creating economic security and escaping financial abuse)
• How early intervention (including better identifying the risk of violence and abuse)  creates more positive outcomes for women and children
• The need to expand workforce strategies to further build the capacity of frontline workers to reduce the risk of violence against women
• The role of the justice system in responding to violence and supporting victim-survivors to report and seek justice
• The importance of addressing gendered drivers of violence against women to prevent sexual violence
• Acknowledgment of the need to provide tailored, culturally, and socially appropriate responses developed through active listening and collaboration for those with lived experiences of “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women and children with disability, migrant and refugee women and communities, children and young people in their own right, older women, LGBTQIA+ people and women in regional and remote areas”  

DV-alert is a key initiative and partner under the National Plan to reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022, which sets out to “make a real and sustained reduction in the levels of violence against women”. 

DV-alert training is primarily developed for, and delivered to, frontline workers, who are the catalyst for early intervention for the prevention of domestic and family violence because intervention is something we can all participate in for better outcomes for women and children.

Through our commitment to lending our voices and resources to a violence-free future for women and girls, DV-alert delivers several workshop streams across approximately 460 workshops annually across all states and territories in Australia, training more than 6,500 frontline community workers and volunteers. Workshop content is developed with, and delivered by, trainers with specialised expertise in Multicultural, Settlement, Indigenous, Working with Women with Disability, Engaging with Interpreters that have been built off the core General training program. In the most recently launched stream, Men who use Violence, frontline workers learn about the drivers of men’s use of violence and how to take actions that will lower the risk presented to women and their children. 

The 25th of November is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Please join our efforts to reduce violence against women by enrolling in a free DV-alert workshop in your community, online or via eLearning.

1. World Health Organization, on behalf of the United Nations Inter-Agency Working Group on Violence Against Women Estimation and Data (2021). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2018. Global, regional and national prevalence estimates for intimate partner violence against women and global and regional prevalence estimates for non-partner sexual violence against women.
2.  https://www.un.org/en/observances/ending-violence-against-women-day/background