On the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, over a 100 volunteers gathered on Sofijska square and formed an official sign of the “UNiTE to End Violence against Women” campaign - the symbol of eternity. This flash mob marked the beginning of the “16 Days Against Gender Violence” global campaign to support the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon campaign “UNiTE to End Violence against Women” that chosen the orange and blue ribbon in the shape of eternity sign as its official sign.

“16 Days Against Gender Violence” campaign is held every year all over the world to draw attention of global community to the issue of gender violence. The campaign starts on 25 November, on the the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women, and lasts till 10 December, the Human Rights Day. These time frames were chosen in order to connect symbolically the issues of gender violence and human rights to stress that the violence is a violation of human rights.

This year campaign slogan is “From peace in the world, to peace in the home!”. The slogan of our national campaign is “From peace in the home, to peace in Ukraine!”.

This year event has been organized by Ukrainian civil society and international organizations, namely, international charity foundation “Health Right International”, country offices of UNFPA and OSCE in Ukraine under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.

During the press briefing, the representatives of the respective organizations urged the Ukrainian women to stop tolerating the violence and apply for help to social service centers, police and civil society. They also called upon celebrities, TV anchors, politicians and public figures to wear the campaign sign and thus support the idea that gender violence should not be tolerated in Ukraine.

During the event, activists and volunteers hand out the event pins to people passing by at Sofijska square and kindly requested to put the pin on as a sign of their support for the social movement. The Kyiv city center for family, children and youth social services supported the event with the thematic tent that was located at the flash mob site and where the center experts provided the information support to the campaign event.

Violence is the most popular form of human right violation. Psychological and physical violence destroys the victim’s personality, negatively affects her social life and the possibilities to balance her live and raise children in peace and harmony. Moreover, children who witness the violence subconsciously adopt this behavioral model of relations between men and women. This proves that gender violence is a social problem that influences not only women themselves but also has bad impact on separate families and the whole society. Besides physical and psychological forms of gender violence the experts mark out economic and sexual ones.

68% of women in Ukraine experience violence in their families, 35% women, who apply to emergency rooms, receive torture related physical injuries, 50% of homeless women and children make decision to flee from their homes escaping from domestic violence.