16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

'I wouldn't dream of trusting my family.' - Anita. In Pakistan, many women who decide to leave abusive marriages are signing their own death warrants. They risk being disfigured or murdered by men who believe it is the only way to restore honor to the family. Authorities in Pakistan rarely respond to reports of honor killing. The Human Rights Commission Pakistan and the Women Action Forum estimate that 1000 women are murdered each year, with little or no response from the government. At the Dastak women's shelter in Lahore, women accused of tarnishing the family honor find a safe haven. Here, receiving both counseling and legal advice. Kubra is one such woman. After enduring repeated beatings, the 28-year-old fled to Dastak. We meet Kubra--armed guard in tow--on her way to a meeting with members of her family. They entreat her to return. Eventually, she agrees. Three weeks later, she is murdered, shot to death in her sleep. Through Kubra's story, and the stories of other women at Dastak, the film creates a portrait of one institution that is protecting Pakistani women, at least the women who can make it there.

This video looks at progress in achieving greater equality for women--five years after the Beijing Conference on Women. Government delegations in Beijing pledged themselves to tackle increasing violence against women. But in South Africa, the police and judiciary still don't regard rape and domestic violence as serious crimes--with only one in 20 rapists receiving a conviction, and the punishment for wife-killing equal to that of fraud. In Lithuania, violence takes a more subtle form, with economic hardship forcing many young women into the hands of unscrupulous traffickers who sell women into the sex industry in Europe and the Far East. This program also analyzes the soaring rate of teenage pregnancies in Scotland, while aging populations in Brazil and the UK mean that more and more old people live out the final years of their lives in poverty.

Ved comes from a violent home in the Mumbai slums. When he joins a project aiming to foster healthy masculinity, he begins to realise there may be a brighter path for his future than the one paved by his abusive, controlling father. Men Against Violence and Abuse (MAVA), is making progressive work on gender equality in India. MAVA aspires to break down the traditional male gender roles and the culture of violence. Harish and his colleague Asper provide alternative, more secure role models for Ved. Will Ved be able to change the course of his life with the support he is getting? Is the new generation mature enough to abandon the strict gender roles or will the traditions weigh more?

Reducing sexual violence in South Africa sometimes seems an uphill battle against massive odds. But inspiring court battles that empower women and gender activists show how personal experience of horrific trauma have finally begun to change the way the law is applied. The film is filled with brave and moving appearances by victims, and demonstrations of public outrage.

Domestic violence against women is rife among the Samburu in Kenya. In Samburu culture the women also do all the work, including building the homes, herding, collecting firewood and water and caring for the children. In the 1980's and 90's two hundred women from the tribe claimed they were raped by men from a nearby British army base. The Samburu men rejected them, whipped them and threw them out of their homes. In 1990 a small group of these stigmatized women decided to band together and create their own village. Under the leadership of one woman, Rebecca Lollosoli, their village has prospered, taking advantage of the income from tourism. The Samburu men have tried to sabotage the tourist business and have also mounted raids on the village. Finally, the Samburu men's chief tried to effect a reconciliation, but the women vehemently rejected his proposal. They are clearly enjoying the advantages of independence!.

In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes - images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne's groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence.

Record of a week-long workshop for men, training to be advocates against domestic and gender based violence.

Pink Boy is a verite-style documentary profiling the challenges of raising a young gender non-conforming boy growing up in a conservative area of rural Florida. Six-year old Jeffrey likes nothing better than to put on a gown and dance for his two lesbian moms, who adopted him expecting they would raise a boy. Mom BJ successfully avoided dresses and girls' toys her entire life and admits she initially had a hard time when her son expressed feminine interests."Pink boys" have their unique challenges: they do not neatly fit into a single gender box, and instead create a space between genders, which this film explores. They like to dress in girl's clothing and play with girl toys but still identify as boys. These children often face widespread ignorance and shaming, sometimes from their own families. They often live with daily threats of bullying and violence and are at high risk for depression and suicide as they reach their teens. Pink Boy's verite-style allows the viewer to experience life through Jeffrey's eyes. Thanks to supportive parents, we see Jeffrey confidently move between masculine and feminine in dress-up time at school, a rodeo in Georgia, and the ultimate holiday for a pink boy, Halloween. As Jeffrey increasingly wishes to be publicly identified as a girl called Jessie, his parents must learn both to accept and to navigate when it is safe for him in an often hostile environment.

In response to video games that graphically depict women as sexual objects and victims of brutal violence, Sex, Murder, and Video Games explores how violence against women is promoted, how power and violence are related, and how violence against women is paired with entertainment.

Sexual bullying is a newly defined but all-too-common form of bullying, which goes on largely un-addressed in schools. What exactly is sexual bullying and how can schools begin to challenge these behaviours in teenagers? This film explores why schools should acknowledge the problem of sexual bullying, and looks at emerging strategies to address it. Through the work of two pioneers who are taking their own workshops into schools, this programme gets to the heart of this sensitive and complicated issue. Shona Bruce of the Violence Against Women Partnership at Dunbartonshire Council believes that teenagers need to be made to question gender stereotypes, and advocates a whole school approach to changing the culture of a school. Leonie Hodge, of Teen Boundaries UK, draws on her own experiences to deliver anti-bullying lessons to teenagers.

There is a proverb among the Samoans of old: "When the winds are calm, raise the pandanus sail, when the day is blustery, raise the sennit sail." Violence against women and girls in Samoa and indeed all countries can be likened to a storm assailing humanity. If we are to survive this storm, measures need to be adopted to end violence against women and girls. We need to collectively and individually raise the sennit sails that protect the fabric of society if we are to journey towards a global culture of violence-free families. What causes violence against women and girls? Has gender-based violence always existed in Samoa or has something changed in the nature of gender relations since the arrival of foreigners? Are there cultural or faith-based practices and beliefs that make violence an acceptable form of punishment for wrongdoing? IS there a correlation between gender equality and gender-based violence? Are there links between smacking a child and seeing that child grow up to smack others? What are the consequences of violence against women and girls beyond the bruising and hurt feelings? These questions are explored in this film with the hope that viewers may pause to reflect on how violence may feature in their own families, and to consider what steps might be taken to end violence in all communities around the world.

There is a proverb among the Samoans of old: "When the winds are calm, raise the pandanus sail, when the day is blustery, raise the sennit sail." Violence against women and girls in Samoa and indeed all countries can be likened to a storm assailing humanity. If we are to survive this storm, measures need to be adopted to end violence against women and girls. We need to collectively and individually raise the sennit sails that protect the fabric of society if we are to journey towards a global culture of violence-free families. What causes violence against women and girls? Has gender-based violence always existed in Samoa or has something changed in the nature of gender relations since the arrival of foreigners? Are there cultural or faith-based practices and beliefs that make violence an acceptable form of punishment for wrongdoing? IS there a correlation between gender equality and gender-based violence? Are there links between smacking a child and seeing that child grow up to smack others? What are the consequences of violence against women and girls beyond the bruising and hurt feelings? These questions are explored in this film with the hope that viewers may pause to reflect on how violence may feature in their own families, and to consider what steps might be taken to end violence in all communities around the world.

This short documentary features Black women active in politics as well as community, labour and feminist organizing. They share their insights and personal testimonies on the double legacy of racism and sexism, linking their personal struggles with the ongoing battle to end systemic discrimination and violence against women and people of colour.

Across our colleges and universities, women are being sexually assaulted and then blamed for it. Violence against women has been silenced for too long. This film brings it into the open.

This film explores the social, psychological and cultural factors that contribute to violence against women regardless of ethnicity or economic background. Survivors, safe house administrators, counselors, police officers, and male abusers in counseling explore the many factors that contribute to the pervasiveness of this tragic aspect of American family life. Shot in battered women's shelters, urban and suburban neighborhoods, counseling centers, and even in a county jail where a woman has been incarcerated for the murder of her abusive husband.

"I'm a Macho Man! I beat my woman! I'm very macho! If you want to tame a woman, beat her!" Lyrics from a Nicaraguan popular song. Violence against women affects the lives of millions of women worldwide, in all socio-economic classes. It is the leading cause of death and injury among women from fifteen to forty-five years of age, occurring in greater numbers than traffic accidents, cancer or war, according to U.N. statistics. Nicaragua has not escaped this pandemic. The pervasive culture of machismo and the general public's indifference to the problem in its male-dominated society led to the murders of more than fifty women at the hands of their husbands or partners last year. Half of these women had filed police reports on their assaulters before they were murdered. In this documentary, several women describe their husbands' and partners' attacks and their frustrating attempts to obtain justice from the Nicaraguan police, district attorneys and judges. The victims are routinely ignored by the police and bureaucrats responsible for arresting their attackers. The media makes fun of the women's suffering, using songs to encourage male chauvinism. The psychologist Ruth Marina Matamoros says the situation is so bad that violence against women has been declared a public health problem. To alleviate this a few all-women police precincts have been set up, staffed by specially-trained policewomen. The policewomen deplore that no shelters exist for the battered women. In the film, some of the women attend a meeting to learn how to break the cycle of violence. The film ends with women marching in protest, shouting "Not One More Woman Killed -- ¡YA NO MAS!"