The Feminist Peace Network will be participating in the Take Back the Tech Blogathon for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence which takes place Nov. 25 (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) through Dec. 10 (International Human Rights Day). Observed since 1991, The 16 Days theme this year is “Demanding Implementation, Challenging Obstacles: End Violence Against Women.” The call includes:

• Demanding and securing adequate funding for work against VAW.
• Calling for greater accountability and political commitment from states to prevent and punish all forms of violence against women in practice, not just in words.
• Increasing awareness of the impact of violence against women, including engaging in measures to end it by men and boys.
• Evaluating the impact and effectiveness of work to prevent violence against women; Securing the space for advocacy and defending the defenders of women’s human rights in their work to end gender based violence.
• The 16 Days Campaign continues to highlight important issues raised in past years, including looking at VAW as a public health crisis, the intersection between HIV/AIDS and VAW, and the protection of women human rights defenders.

Why is using blogs to raise awareness about VAW important? Take Back the Tech, organised by the Association for Progressive Communications, Women’s Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) , explains it this way:

“The root cause of violence against women (VAW) lies in unequal power relations between men and women in almost all facets of life. The field of information communications technology (ICTs) faces the same gender disparity. As a result, digital spaces like the internet, broadcast and telecommunications have become defined and developed according to dominant perspectives of masculinities.

This means that VAW that happened in physical spaces like the home and streets, are now also taking new forms and occurring in digital spaces. For example, domestic violence abusers have used tools like spyware and GPS to track and control their partner’s mobility.”

Needless to say participating in this campaign is hardly a stretch given that we blog about the impact of violence on women’s lives every day. But we hope that this concerted effort by bloggers everywhere will be a chance to significantly raise the visibility of VAW and demand actions to end the culture of impunity that allows this pandemic to continue.

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