A domestic violence prevention campaign, dubbed “The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence”, will begin in Tajikistan on November 25. 

The action, which is aimed at raising public awareness of domestic violence, is organized by the Project on Prevention of Domestic Violence (PDV), which is implemented in Tajikistan by the Branch of the German Company GOPA in Tajikistan under financial support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

A number of activities, involving representatives of local authorities, civil society, youth, and media, will be organized in the cities of Dushanbe and Qurghon Teppa as well as the districts of Vakhsh, Bokhtar, Khuroson, Hamadoni, Balkhi, Shahritous and Panj in the southern province of Khatlon.

Violence against women still remains a wide-spread phenomenon in Tajikistan.  Negative issues like unemployment, poverty and social inequality that deteriorated during transition period led to increased level of psychological and physical violence towards women in the country.

Domestic violence can occur equally in families with high socio-economic status as well as in poor families.  

According to the statistical data from the Committee for Family and Women’s Affairs under the Government of Tajikistan, more than 8,000 people, with more than 6,000 of them being women, have applied to the information consultative centers in Tajikistan over the first nine months of this year alone.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, which lasts from November 25 to December 10, is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991.  Participants chose the dates November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a human rights violation.

This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates, including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

The 16 Days Campaign has been commemorated by individuals and groups around the world who use a human rights framework to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by: raising awareness at the local, national, regional and international levels; strengthening local work; linking local and global work: providing a forum for dialogue and strategy-sharing; pressuring governments to implement commitments made in national and international legal instruments; and demonstrating the solidarity of activists around the world.