Ending Violence Against Women & Girls
Violence against women and girls has grown exponentially in the wake of COVID-19, in what some have called a shadow pandemic. Ripple is working with an incredible group of women’s rights activists from around the world calling for a global treaty to tackle this issue. In anticipation of the U.N. Women’s Generation Equality Forum, in which violence against women was a top priority, Ripple came up with the idea of doing a sign-on letter urging these leaders to consider a treaty as one of their recommended solutions. After much hard work from the team, we collected over 260 signatures from 64 countries and released the letter to the media. The story was featured in the Washington Post’s The Lily with this incredible headline: Tackling gender violence is a priority for the U.N. equality forum. These activists are demanding more: An international treaty. In addition, we helped write and place this powerful op-ed in Newsweek by Judge Najla Ayoubi: Afghanistan Needs Global Support to Stop Violence Against Women echoing the call for a global treaty. We also worked with UN Mandela Prize Laureate, Dr. Morissanda Kouyate, from Guinea, on his op-ed about Ending Violence Against Women and Girls which we placed in the Council of Foreign Relation’s Think Global Health; and with human rights attorney Francisco Rivera outlining the legal framework for a global treaty in Devex which resulted in this op-ed: We need a global treaty on gender-based violence. It’s been an incredible honor to work with these activists from every corner of the planet who are fighting on behalf of survivors, oftentimes putting themselves in harm’s way, each and every day.