Campaign 16 Days of Activism

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign that calls for the elimination of all forms of gender-based violence (GBV). It runs each year from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day. The dates symbolically link violence against women with broader human rights concerns, emphasizing that such violence is a fundamental human rights violation.

The campaign was initiated in 1991 by the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), based at Rutgers University in the United States. It was launched during the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute, bringing together women’s rights activists from around the world. Since then, it has grown into a powerful global movement supported by thousands of organizations and individuals in over 180 countries. The starting date, 25 November, commemorates the brutal murder of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic in 1960, political activists killed for opposing the Trujillo dictatorship.

Each year, the campaign adopts a global theme that reflects pressing issues, such as femicide, workplace harassment, online violence, or the link between militarism and GBV. Ultimately, the campaign is a unifying call to action: to confront gender-based violence not as isolated incidents, but as part of systemic inequality and discrimination rooted in patriarchal power structures. It reminds us that a world free of violence is not only possible—but necessary—for justice, equality, and human dignity.Autonomous Women’s House Zagreb participates in this campaign every year, including with specific actions, from which the most well-known is “Every 4^th woman falls down the stairs” from 2004.