Written by Eden Wein
Every year from International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25th to World Human Rights Day on December 10th, we observe the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV). These 16 days serve as an opportunity to take a stand opposing violence against women and the LGBTQ+ community, but we should not stop at these two weeks; we should always be using our voices to take a stand and fight to end the violence.
According to recent statistics, 30% of women aged 15 years and older report experiencing sexual assault at least once. Additionally, transgender people are more likely to have experienced violence compared to cisgender people. Violence disproportionately affects women, especially trans women and women of color. In 2019, Statistics Canada reported that approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. GBV is not an issue that only occurs for 16 days, so our activism against it should not either. Every life lost and every person subjected to GBV is one too many. The fight against GBV must be a constant one. It is not enough to only take a stand for two weeks every year while people are dying every day.
In this day and age, our society often falls victim to “slacktivism.” Slacktivism, a word recently described in the Oxford Dictionary as the practice of supporting a political or social cause by means such as social media or online petitions, characterized as involving very little effort or commitment, has become the forefront of movements such as this one. People repost Instagram statistics for two weeks out of the year and then move on with their lives, giving the issue little to no thought until it rolls around again the following year. This is why we must never let Gender-Based Violence leave the media cycle and why we must never stop talking about the importance of ending it.
When lives are on the line, it is not enough to dedicate just two weeks to the fight to end the violence. No matter the day or time of the year, we must always continue to take a stand in the fight to end Gender-Based Violence.