The Institute Will Profile the Color Orange in Solidarity with the Global Campaign

Washington, DC -- This year NDI's logo on its website will turn orange during the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. The first of the 16 days, November 25, is the International Day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and commemorates the 1960 assassination of the Mirabal Sisters, three political activists murdered by the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic. The final day of activism, December 10, falls on Human Rights Day. NDI invites the public to join the global campaign to stop ALL forms of violence against women.

Each year, the United Nations Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women (UNiTE) calls for global action to increase worldwide awareness and create opportunities for discussion about challenges and solutions. In recent years, the UNiTE campaign has utilized the color orange as a unifying theme running through all of its global activities, as a symbol of a brighter future, free from violence against women and girls. This year’s theme for the 16 Days is “Leave No-one Behind: End Violence Against Women and Girls”.  

Highlights of NDI’s activities during the 16 Days include:

• NDI.org will turn orange to mark the beginning of the 16 days of activism celebrating the International Day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The website will remain orange during the full 16 days of activism.
• Sandra Pepera, NDI Director of the Gender, Women and Democracy Team will present an op-ed analyzing the #MeToo campaign and its potential to either make a significant difference for change or collapse into irrelevance and silence.
• NDI will post a featured blog from the honorable Astrid Thors, Former Finnish Minister for Migration and European Affairs. who will focus on violence against women in political parties.
• NDI will participate in  #OrangeYourWorld. NDI staff will wear orange and use social media to show why they are supporting the campaign to end gender-based violence.
• NDI will be holding in-country focus groups testing a new risk assessment tool in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nicaragua, Mexico and Lebanon.

As women have advanced toward equality, they have made historic gains in political life, and are increasingly taking on positions of power as civil society activists, political party leaders, local councilors and mayors, cabinet ministers, prime ministers and presidents. It is their right to do so—and their full and equal political participation benefits their communities and their countries, resulting in real gains for democracy. Political violence can be experienced by both men and women. However, the global phenomenon of violence against women in politics has three distinct characteristics:

1. it targets women because of their gender;
2. it is gendered in its form - for example the use of sexist threats and sexual violence; and
3. its impact is to discourage women - particularly young women - from being or becoming politically active.  

Violence against women in politics encompasses all forms of aggression, coercion and intimidation against women as political actors and involves a range of negative behaviours including harassment, psychological abuse (both in person and online), physical and/or sexual assault. Any of these types of violence can occur in private, public or “protected public” spaces. Many women are told “it’s the cost of being in politics.” NDI says it’s not.  

At the launch of the #NotTheCost campaign in New York in March 2016, Secretary Madeleine Albright made a specific ask of the global system to report on violence against women in politics. As part of the initiative, NDI has collaborated with the Office of the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (SRVAW) to systematically collect data from around the world through NDI’s Incident Report Form, on the violence that politically active women experience.  This data will inform the first ever UN thematic report on the issue, and NDI appreciates the UN SRVAW’s commitment to deliver such a report to the United Nations General Assembly in 2018.  

“People - not just women - in every region of the world are talking about the violence that politically active women face. Why is it important? Because achieving greater equality between women and men in politics strengthens all our democracies. We can use more and better data to find solutions to this problem,”  said Sandra Pepera, NDI Director for Gender, Women and Democracy (GWD).  “The facts and testimonies that the new incident report form generates will help us to address the backlash that is turning many women away from politics.”    

To learn more about the #NotTheCost campaign please see https://www.ndi.org/not-the-cost.

NDI  is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

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