What are your plans for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence?
16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign to challenge violence against women and girls. It runs from the 25th November - International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women to the 10th December – International Human Rights Day.
This campaign is to raise awareness of violence towards women all over the world. In the UK we kick it off with White Ribbon Day – a national campaign to raise awareness of male violence towards women. White Ribbon UK work with men and boys to “challenge those male cultures that lead to harassment, abuse and violence.” This year the theme of White Ribbon Day is “Creating a future without male violence against women.”
This can be a great time to engage young people in discussing sexism and gender dynamics, and how this all links to gender-based violence.
The 2018 report on “Sexual violence and sexual harassment between children in schools and colleges” stated that:
- 64% of girls aged 13-21 had experienced sexual violence or sexual harassment at school or college in the past year. This included 39% having their bra strap pulled by a boy and 27% having their skirts pulled up within the last week.
- Over a third (37%) of female students and 6% of male students at mixed-sex schools have personally experienced some form of sexual harassment at school.
- Almost a quarter (24%) of female students and 4% of male students at mixed-sex schools have been subjected to unwanted physical touching of a sexual nature while at school.
The report also stated that schools and colleges should be aware of the importance of:
- making clear that sexual violence and sexual harassment is not acceptable, will never be tolerated and is not an inevitable part of growing up
- not tolerating or dismissing sexual violence or sexual harassment as “banter”, “part of growing up”, “just having a laugh” or “boys being boys”
- challenging behaviour (potentially criminal in nature), such as grabbing bottoms, breasts and genitalia and flicking bras and lifting up skirts. Dismissing or tolerating such behaviours risks normalising them
- understanding that all of the above can be driven by wider societal factors beyond the school and college, such as everyday sexist stereotypes and everyday sexist language.
If you want to use Loudmouth as part of your whole school approach on this issue, there are three programmes you might be interested in…
‘Helping Hands’ – a primary school programme which teaches children how to recognise abuse, including peer on peer sexual harrassment. The workshops provide an opportunity to challenge this behaviour and discuss quality between boys and girls.
‘Safe and Sound’ – a secondary school programme which explores domestic abuse and gives young people the chance to directly challenge sexist beliefs and ideas of ‘masculinity’ which can lead to violence and abuse in relationships.
‘Bully 4 U’ – this secondary school programme focuses on bullying in its many forms, and highlights how sexism can play a role in bullying and sexual harassment.
If you’d like to book a programme to celebrate this campaign, get in touch! You can call us on 0121 446 4880 or email us at info@loudmouth.co.uk.