16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Campaign is a global campaign dedicated to end gender-based violence. It runs every year from November 25th, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, to December 10th, Human Rights Day.

The campaign was created by the activists who attended the first Women's Global Leadership Institute (1991) organized by the Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University, under the leadership of Charlotte Bunch. It has now grown to more than 6,000 organizations in more than 180 nations worldwide. See the report "Women's Leadership Development Resource: Twelve Years of Women's Global Leadership Institutes" (2004) by Bojana Blagojevic and Charlotte Bunch below.

The 16 Days Campaign is dedicated to:

• Raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue;
• Strengthening local work around violence against women;
• Providing a forum to develop and share strategies;
• Demonstrating the solidarity of activists around the world; and
• Calling governments to account, respond, and prevent violence against women.

The 16 Days Activism led to the CWGL activities around the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria where women gained official recognition of women's rights as human rights and of violence against women as human rights abuse.

For more information on the Global Campaign and the Vienna Tribunal, see the book Demanding Accountability : The Global Campaign and Vienna Tribunal for Women’s Human Rights (1994). Alexander and Douglass Library call # K644.B86 1994  and online.

Additionally, the documentary Vienna Tribunal (1994) presents the testimonials by women at the conference (RU restricted).

In 2013, CWGL hosted the 20 Years After Vienna Symposium to discuss human rights issues after the world conference and to engage stakeholders in the challenges and opportunities in the 21st century.

CWGL was instrumental in fostering recognition of women's rights as human rights. Despite these amazing accomplishments, it closed its doors in 2022.