Introduction to Our Topic

The topic allocated was “Devise and Implement the 16 Days of Activism for 2006. Link Your Days with the UNAIDS Theme.” In order to make this topic more accessible to our group, we broke it down into the following components, and focused on what we identified as key issues within those components –

16 Days of Activism -
a) What is the 16 Days of Activism Campaign?
b) When are the 16 Days, and do these dates have any significance?
c) What is it intended to achieve?
d) How can we participate?

UNAIDS theme –
a) What is the theme for this year?
b) What is the link between 16 Days Campaign and UNAIDS? (In addressing this issue we had to determine the link between gender-related violence and HIV/AIDS)
c) How is it significant in South Africa?
d) How do we implement the UNAIDS theme into our campaign?

We will now briefly discuss each of these components and their various issues.

1. 16 Days of Activism –
a) What is the 16 Days of Activism Campaign?
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Violence is a global campaign aimed at creating awareness around gender-violence, advocating for its elimination and assisting women who are victims of gender violence. It seeks to hold governments accountable for the promises they have made.
This year’s national theme is ‘Celebrate 16 years of 16 Days: Advance Human Rights and End Violence Against Women’.[1]
It seeks to reflect and celebrate the achievements the Campaign has made in the past, and to use successes as a source of inspiration for present and future efforts.
The theme continues with the core elements of utilizing human rights as a means of ending gender-based violence and is a means of acknowledging that while great triumphs should be celebrated, the fight is by no means over. There is still much to be done before the right to equality is truly realized and violence against women and children is effectively dealt with.

b) When are the 16 Days, and do these dates have any significance?
Participants in the 16 Days of Activism campaign chose the dates November 25th (International Day for No Violence Against Women) and December 10th (International Human Rights Day) to illustrate symbolically the link between gender-based violence and human rights and to illustrate that violence against women is a gross human rights violation[2].

The campaign includes 1st December, which is World AIDS Day. This brings into the campaign the global issue of HIV/AIDS and compels society to address the link between gender-violence and HIV/AIDS. Included in the campaign are dates of remembrance, such as November 29th which is International Women Human Rights Defenders Day and December 6th, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.[3]

c) What is the campaign intended to achieve?
The 16 Days Campaign has been used as a coordinating strategy by individuals and groups to call for the eradication of all forms of violence against women by:
- To create an increased level of awareness amongst South Africans relating to the frequency and occurrence of violence perpetuate against women and children, how it reveals itself within our society and the negative impact that violence has on these vulnerable groups;
- To challenge perpetrators of these offences to change their behaviour;
- To enhance and broaden partnerships between government, the private sector, civil society, organised labour unions, the faith-based organisations and the media (electronic and print) in an effort to spread the message;
- To align events in the national programme with that of the international theme for this year, which focuses on celebrating 16 years of 16 Days of Activism and advancing human rights to end abuse;
- To raise funds for NGOs that work within the sector, providing important support to the victims and survivors of violence;
- To engage actively with men and boys in relation to combating violence in homes, communities and in the workplace; and
- To highlight the stories of survivors of gender-based violence and the impact that the campaign has had on their lives.[4]
d) How can we participate?
As a group we identified the following ways to participate –
Investigate and explore – research the 16 Days of Activism, it’s related issues in order to find out as much as we can, so that we can effectively plan and implement our various strategies;
Educate and Inform – create awareness about the 16 Days – this is being done by:
- publishing information in community newspapers, online newspapers, forum discussions;
- distributing information packages, flyers and posters, badges, stickers;
- sharing information on our website; and
- participating in the Red and White Ribbon Campaign.
Act and contribute – by assisting organizations that help abused women and children – this is being done by
- Collecting items to assist these organizations (food, clothing, toiletries etc)
- Raising funds for these organisations
Share, participate and commemorate – our findings, reports, pamphlets, posters and various other campaign materials were submitted to the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership[5] to form part of this year’s international campaign, and to be added to the International Archives so that it forms part of the resource pool that can be used for other individuals or organizations in their research and implementation of similar endeavours.

2. UNAIDS theme –
a) What is the theme for this year?
The UNAIDS theme is ‘Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise’, this is in relation to the promises that government has made in order to combat the AIDS pandemic. It focuses on government accountability.
In relation to individuals, the theme is ‘Stop Aids. Make the Promise’[6]. This involves making the pledge to know one’s status, practice safer sex and thus assisting in halting the spread of HIV/AIDS.

b) What is the link between 16 Days Campaign and UNAIDS? (In addressing this issue we had to determine the link between gender-related violence and HIV/AIDS)
“Sexual violence against women by intimate partners in the home or by strangers…increases women’s vulnerability to HIV infection and further violence. Effective intervention strategies can be developed by recognizing and analyzing the interplay between gender inequality, violence and the HIV pandemic.”[7]

The above quotation is illustrative of the four main reasons[8] why violence against women and HIV/AIDS overlap, increasing female vulnerability:
1. Coercive sex can cause injuries and bleeding that can lead directly to a higher risk of HIV infection for women. More often than not, this type of sex, including rape, takes place without the use of condoms, and women are unlikely to be able to negotiate condom usage in these incidents
2.Abusive relationships represent an on-going threat to women – again it is difficult for women to negotiate condom usage and safer sex practices within violent relationships. It is also difficult for them to leave such relationships, which places them in a position of on-going risk of being infected with the virus.
3.Research indicates that women who have been abused as children are more likely to engage in high-risk sex practices such as having multiple partners, and engaging in sexual encounters while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, in which circumstances condom-usage is unlikely.
4.Women who know their HIV status or who are perceived to be living with HIV may be at risk of retaliatory violence, rejection from partners and their community.

c) How is it significant in South Africa?
The link between domestic violence (violence against women and children) is a significant problem that needs addressing, because of the cultural, social and economic circumstances that create an environment[9] conducive to the perpetuation of abuse, making women and girls more vulnerable to HIV infection than their male counterparts. South Africa has one of the most severe HIV/AIDS epidemics, one that is fueled by violence against women and girls. 15-24 year old females[10] account for half of new HIV infections worldwide; more than 6 000 contract the virus each day. Young women constitute the greatest number of HIV infected persons and with as many as one rape every occurring 26 seconds, coupled with the myth that having sex with a virgin is a cure for HIV/AIDS[11], the need for a link between a campaign opposing violence against women and children and a campaign fighting the spread of AIDS is clear.


d) How do we implement the UNAIDS theme into our campaign?
We implemented the UNAIDS theme into our campaign in the following ways:
addressing the link between violence against women and girls and the spread of HIV/AIDS;
Making World AIDS Day, celebrated on the 1st of December annually, an integral date in our Days and including the Red Ribbon in our Red and White Ribbon Campaign;
Educating people using the resources available to us, this being print media in the form of pamphlets, posters and our Action and Advocacy packages and information technology by utilizing our Campaign Blog, online forums, encyclopedias and newspapers.

In light of the abovementioned statistics relating to women between the ages of 15 and 24 being the most vulnerable, we decided to target our campaign at that age group, most of which we could approach and create contact with on campus. In essence, we created a campus-wide campaign plan, but broadened it in the sense that there were components of our campaign that could be accessed off-campus and across borders.


References:
[1] Centre for Global Women’s Leadership [WWW] “2006 Theme Annoucement” http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/kit06/theme.html Accessed 25 October 2006.
[2] Author Unknown. [WWW] “ About the 16 Days”,http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/about.html Accessed 26 October 2006.
[3] For more information on the 16 Days, refer to our calendar, which is presented in the Annexures section.
[4]Centre for Women’s Global Leadership. [WWW] “About the 16 Days” http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/about.html Accessed 16 October 2006.
[5] http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu
[6] http://worldaidscampaign.info/index.php/wac/wac
[7] Dr. Yakin Ertürk, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
[8] Gender Links [WWW]“Gender Violence and HIV/AIDS. Unite against Gender Violence and HIV Aids. PEP is a right, not just a talk” http://www.genderlinks.org.za/docs/sixteendocs/fact%20sheet%208_violence%20and%20HIV.pdf accessed 21 October 2006.
[9] For a more in-depth discussion of this topic and others, see Findings at pg ??
[10] Gender Links [WWW] “Young Women, Violence and HIV/AIDS. Shame on Sugar Daddies”, http://www.genderlinks.org.za/docs/sixteendocs/fact%20sheet%209_young%20women.pdf, Accessed 22 October.
[11] Global Aids Alliance [WWW] “ZERO TOLERANCE: Stop the Violence Against Women and Children, Stop HIV/AIDS” http://allafrica.com/sustainable/resources/view/00011043.pdf Accessed 10 October 2006.