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The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence uses the 16 days between International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (25 November) and International Human Rights Day (10 December) to reinforce that eliminating all forms of violence against women is a human rights issue and that the act of perpetrating violence against women is a human rights violation. The 16 Days Campaign brings the human rights framework to the heart of its work and utilizes it to ensure that both state and non-state actors are held accountable for acts of violence against women.<\/p>\n
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International Day For the Elimination of Violence Against Women, November 25th<\/strong><\/p>\n November 25th\u00a0was declared International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women at the first Feminist Encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean held in Bogota, Colombia, July 18-21, 1981. The \u201cfeminist encuentros\u201d are conferences of feminists from Latin America who come together every 2-3 years in a different Latin American country to exchange experiences and reflect upon the state of the women\u2019s movement.\u00a0 At that first Encuentro, women systematically denounced all forms of gender-based violence, from domestic battery, rape and sexual harassment to state violence including torture and abuse of women political prisoners. November 25th\u00a0was chosen to commemorate the violent assassination of the Mirabal sisters (Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa) on November 25, 1960 by the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.\u00a0 In 1999, the United Nations officially recognized November 25th\u00a0as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.<\/p>\n Who were the Mirabal sisters?<\/strong><\/p>\n Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa and Ded\u00e9 were born in Ojo de Agua near the city of Salcedo, in the Cibao region of the Dominican Republic. \u201cLas Mariposas\u201d (\u201cthe Butterflies\u201d), as they were called, were political activists and highly visible symbols of resistance to Trujillo\u2019s dictatorship.\u00a0 They were repeatedly jailed, along with their husbands, for their revolutionary activities toward democracy and justice.\u00a0 On November 25, 1960, three of the Mirabal sisters, Minerva, Patria and Maria Teresa were murdered, along with Rufino de la Cruz, their driver, by members of Trujillo\u2019s secret police.\u00a0 The three women were being driven by Rufino to Puerto Plata to visit their imprisoned husbands.\u00a0 The bodies of the three sisters were found at the bottom of a precipice, broken and strangled.\u00a0 The news of their brutal assassinations shocked and outraged the nation and helped propel the anti-Trujillo movement.\u00a0 Trujillo was assassinated on May 30, 1961 and his regime fell soon after.<\/p>\n The Mirabal sisters have become symbols of both popular and feminist resistance.\u00a0 In the years since their deaths, they have been commemorated in poems, songs and books.\u00a0 An exhibition of their belongings has been mounted at the National Museum of History and Geography in the Dominican Republic, a stamp has been issued in their memory and a private foundation is raising money to renovate a family museum in their hometown. On March 8, 1997, International Women\u2019s Day, a mural was unveiled on the 137-foot obelisk (that Trujillo had erected in his honor) in Santo Domingo,\u00a0 depicting the images of the four sisters.\u00a0 The painting on the obelisk is entitled \u201cUn Canto a la Libertad\u201d (A Song to Liberty).<\/p>\n For more information see Julia Alvarez\u2019s fictional account of the Mirabal sisters in her 1994 novel, \u201cIn the Time of the Butterflies;\u201d Bernard Diederich\u2019s book \u201cTrujillo: The Death of the Dictator;\u201d and \u201cThe Mirabal Sisters,\u201d in Connexions, an International Women\u2019s Quarterly, No. 39, 1992.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n International Human Rights Day, December 10th\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n On December 10th, people and states the world over celebrate the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).\u00a0 On this landmark date in contemporary history, the nations of the world joined together to try to bury, once and for all, the specter of genocide raised by the Second World War. The UDHR was one of the first major achievements of the United Nations and provided the basic philosophy for many legally-binding international instruments to follow.\u00a0 Resolution 217A (III) by the General Assembly proclaims the \u201cUniversal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms…\u201d<\/p>\n Organizations and individuals use Human Rights Day as an opportunity to both commemorate the signing of this historic document and to promote the principles that it embodies. Human Rights Day, according to former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, is \u201can occasion to demonstrate that the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were not theoretical or abstract.\u201d<\/p>\n