Official Commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women 2021

<p>The campaign highlights the universal nature of VAWG and acknowledging the particular challenges related to COVID-19, humanitarian and conflict situations as well as celebrating the success stories, showcasing the groundbreaking and transformative work that is being carried out despite the impact of the pandemic and often in highly complex humanitarian settings around the world, to show that VAWG can be prevented and inspire scale up and greater investments in the proven solutions.</p><p>Violence against women and girls is the most pervasive violation of human rights globally. According to the latest estimates, nearly 1 in 3 women aged 15 years and older, around the world have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner, nonpartner sexual violence or both at least once in their lifetime, indicating that levels of VAWG have remained largely unchanged over the last decade. These numbers do not reflect the impact of COVID-19 and would be even higher if they included the full continuum of violence that affects women and girls including sexual harassment, violence in digital contexts, harmful practices and sexual exploitation across different contexts, geographic locations, in public and private settings, in contexts of peace or in contexts of conflict as well as in humanitarian or crisis settings with a disproportionate impact on the most marginalized women and girls.</p>