By KAYLA DEMICCO
Opinion Editor
It’s been over a year since the #MeToo movement rose in popularity but now there’s a new movement in the making and people all around the world are taking a stand.
UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, started #HearMeToo, which is “a call to listen to and believe survivors, to end the culture of silencing and to put the survivors at the centre of the response.”
This movement started in honor of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (Nov. 25), which is a day started to bring awareness of violence against women created by the United Nations General Assembly.
In 1993, the UN created a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and defined this unjustified violence as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”
The UNiTE Campaign advocacy theme is “Orange The World: #HearMeToo” and has partnered up with the European Union for the Spotlight Initiative as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is a commitment to eradicate poverty to ensuring that no one is left behind on a worldwide level.
This year, the campaign is launching 16 days worth of activism and will conclude on International Human Rights Day. The goal for the end of the 16 days is to continue to target the institutions in which gender-based violence is perpetuated and push for systemic change and accountability. Other significant days that will highlight this campaign are International Women Human Rights Defenders Day and World AIDS Day.
The color orange will be used in events to show the unification within the activities, will bring global attention to the initiative and symbolizes a brighter future and a world free from violence against women and girls. Iconic buildings and landmarks will be ‘oranged’ to recall the need for a violence-free future.
President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, showed his support for the issue by saying, “I will never stop defending equality between women and men. I owe it to my mother, wife, daughter and all women who, at the cost of enormous sacrifices, have won their rights over the centuries.”
Statistics on violence against women that they have found is that one in three women and girls have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime (often by an intimate partner), only 52 percent of married women freely make decisions about sexual relation, contraception, and health care, and 71 percent of all human trafficking are women and girls.
In the beginning of October, around the time when the news on sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh came out, Trump made his views on the #MeToo movement clearly misogynistic.
“It is a very scary time for young men in America, where you can be guilty of something you may not be guilty of,” Trump said. “This is a very, very – this is a very difficult time. What’s happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.”
This is one of the many times that Trump has publically shared his misogynistic mindset. With someone like him in high power of this country and is very influential to many people, it could take some time to steer people away from their explicit declaration of hatred for women.
Twitter user @angryyellowgirl pointed that misogyny is also the act of “participating in the various patriarchal practices—ignoring, belittling, shaming, hyper-sexualizing, objectifying, dehumanizing, commodifying women—which contribute to our marginalization and erasure.”
Anyone can be a victim of gender-based violence at anytime and anywhere, but women of minority groups such as those who identify as lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex, migrants and refugees, indigenous women and ethnic minorities, or women and girls living with HIV and disabilities, happen to be more vulnerable.
United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said, “Not until the half of our population represented by women and girls can live free from fear, violence and everyday insecurity, can we truly say we live in a fair and equal world.”
To follow along with this movement, check out the tags #OrangeUrWorld, #OrangeTheWorld, #HearMeToo, and #EndVAW on social media.
