International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
November 25 was declared the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women by the first Feminist Encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean (Bogota, Colombia, July 1981). At that gathering, women denounced gender violence in the form of domestic battery, rape and sexual harassment, as well as state violence including torture and abuses of women political prisoners. The date was chosen to commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters (Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa), three political activists who were assassinated by the secret police on November 25, 1960, during the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
In 1999 the UN General Assembly designated this date as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and invited Governments, international organizations and NGOs to raise public awareness of the problem of violence against women.
ParlAmericas joins on this date to say IT’S ENOUGH. Let’s eliminate all forms of psychological, physical and sexual violence, child maltreatment and women trafficking and slavery.
Let’s come together in a hemispheric battle to fight violence against women.
