VAWnet News Blog

As temperatures plunge across most of the country, exposure to extreme weather and vulnerability to illness and lack of food stability increase. It is therefore particularly important to focus in on how we can assist survivors to connect and maintain essential utility services through the cold winter months – and throughout the year.

Violence against women and girls is among the most widespread, and devastating human rights violations in the world, but much of it is often unreported due to impunity, shame and gender inequality, the UN highlighted ahead of Monday’s International Day of the Elimination of Violence against Women to stamp out abuse of women and girls.

"Every hashtag is a person who sat down in front of their computer, contemplating, should I say it? What would happen? What would people say? What if nobody likes my comment? Every bit of the Me Too movement was built on the backs of survivors."

“One of our goals was not only to honor the victims of this horrendous violence but to make this violence visible. It was so clear to us at that time that people weren’t seeing what was happening all around us.”

The new report presents the CDC's first estimate of how many Americans are affected by adverse childhood experiences, as well as the potential benefits of preventing these kinds of traumas.

Hundreds of people protested in Spain's capital on Monday against a court ruling last week that cleared five men of gang-raping a 14-year-old girl and instead found them guilty of the lesser charge of sexual abuse.