Gender-based violence; more common than you think

Gender-based violence is, like the name suggests, violence directed at people because of their gender. This phenomenon continues to be one of the most notable human rights violations within all societies. Although gender-based violence can be experienced by both men and women, the majority of victims are women. Many forms of this kind of violence against women come from the power inequalities between men and women still existing throughout the world. Many people think that gender inequality is something from the past, but sadly enough that is not the case. As seen in the picture below gender-based violence is still very much happening in nowadays society.

When looking at the situation regarding this subject in the Netherlands, it's a lot worse than most people would think. In our country, 45% of all women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Besides that, every week there are around 24 police reports about female victims of sexual violence. It seems like a lot already, but we should not forget the women unable to report the violence that was done against them. This is just a tiny bit of all the data about gender-based violence in the Netherlands, but as you can see, things are not looking bright. Luckily there are also actions that are taken against this kind of violence. For example, the campaign "Orange the world" from UN Women. From November 25th, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, until December 10th, this campaign brings awareness to gender-based violence all around the world, as well as in the Netherlands.

On the 25th of November, we organized an event regarding the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women as well. In the University of Amsterdam, we made a shoe wall as seen in the picture below. Each pair of shoes represents the victims of gender-based violence against women in the past year. With this action, we hoped to bring awareness to the situation when comes to this subject. Showing people that it is still happening each year, so many times, and that is a very urgent matter.

Before ending this post, I'd like to welcome you to yet another Writing Night on December 5th. Location and time are shown on our social media.

Sources:

- https://atria.nl/nieuws-publicaties/geweld/geweld-tegen-vrouwen/geweld-tegen-vrouwen-feiten-en-cijfers/

- https://dribbble.com/shots/5723237-End-Violence-against-Women-Girls-UNWOMEN-2#shot-description

- https://eige.europa.eu/gender-based-violence/what-is-gender-based-violence

- https://www.orangetheworld.nl/

- https://soroptimist.nl/nl/orange-the-world/orange-world-cijfers/

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