Background

The 2003 United Nations Women’s Development Fund (UNIFEM) report called Not a Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women boldly finds that governments are not doing enough to address the pandemic of violence against women. Many are asking, where is the outrage?

The One in Three© Campaign began with a lot of questions. We asked ourselves, if thousands of people in the United States have been focused on ending violence against women for more than thirty years then why haven’t we? Aren’t we tired of creating more shelters, moving women from system to system, uprooting children from their homes because they are no longer safe environments for them? Where are the opportunities for women and children to have economic self-sufficiency in order to live violence-free? What about areas of conflict in the world, where women suffer severe gender-based violence? Why is it that the rate of violence and death of women is relatively unchanged after three decades of work? To what extent have we lost the ability to focus on broad political solutions, and community activism and mobilization? Is our movement still about social change?

One in Three© Campaign has a bold vision: A World Where Women and Girls Are Safe from Violence in Their Homes and Communities.

One in Three© is a simple yet powerful message. It is the statistic used in the 2003 United Nations Women’s Development Fund’s (UNIFEM) report on violence against women worldwide. One in three women in the world will be raped, beaten, sexually coerced, trafficked or otherwise abused in her lifetime.

One in Three© will help you raise awareness, spur dialogue and action, and get nonprofit financial support. One in Three© is a proven and effective tool in all of these strategies. From awareness comes action – and resources for action.

Goals:

Raise awareness about the problem of violence against women; create a global perspective; be a global voice

Increase action and community mobilization against violence against women

Support programs, organizations and communities working to help victims and survivors of gender-based violence

The One in Three© Campaign will work to accomplish these goals by:

Branding and promoting a simple, yet powerful message

Developing and providing awareness raising tools

Providing donation funding streams for non-profits

Engaging in and facilitating dialogue and action between advocates, administrators, politicians, leaders and supporters within and outside the U.S.

Supporting leadership opportunities

Developing critical consciousness about gender-based violence

Prevalence of Violence Against Women

One in Three© brings attention to a long-running pandemic that is a culturally ingrained oppression.One in Three© women is about the prevalence of violence against women globally; that prevalence is the campaign cornerstone. The United Nations Women’s Development Fund (UNIFEM) firmly calls for more governmental intervention against the global problem of violence against women. As the longest, most pervasive and one of most dangerous form of oppression, gender violence continues at an alarming rate. One in Three© women globally will be affected by violence because of her gender. (Link: http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/l11edsum.shtml). For more see About Prevalence

Ending Violence Against Women

Fighting gender-based violence is a major concern for UNIFEM, because violence against women is a universal problem and one of the most widespread violations of human rights. One in three women will suffer some form of violence in her lifetime, becoming part of an epidemic that devastates lives, fractures communities and stalls development. Despite some progress on this issue over the past decade, its horrendous scale remains mostly unacknowledged. New dimensions include the global trafficking of women and girls. UNIFEM Website, January 2006.