Trafford Council is playing a huge role in this year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence campaign.
The 16 Days of Activism is an annual international campaign that started on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day. The campaign is used around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.
Trafford Council and partners – Trafford Rape Crisis (TRC), Trafford Domestic Abuse Services (TDAS), Talk, Listen, Change (TLC), and Make a Change – are spending the 16 days carrying out high-profile activities to support the campaign.
To support the campaign, Trafford have launched their social media campaign – ‘16 Days, 16 People’. Every day, there will be a post on partners’ social media pages with a quote from either a professional or a service user.
Professionals have provided information on how the work they do is impacting on the prevention of gender-based violence, and the service user voice provides us with information on how the services they have accessed have changed their story.
On Friday 1st December, partners will be in Altrincham Town Centre, engaging with the public and providing information on domestic abuse services. Partners will have resources to hand out, from booklets and leaflets with all the DA services available in Trafford and personal alarms to white ribbons and even discreet barcode stickers with DA service contact number on.
Moving into the second week of the campaign, partners will be delivering a bespoke session on healthy relationships and consent to Trafford schools and colleges. The joint workshop will cover both being a victim of domestic abuse and/or sexual abuse as well as being a young person who behaves in unhealthy ways.
Violence against women and girls is the most pervasive human rights violation around the world. More than one in three women experience gender-based violence during their lifetime and less than 40% of women who experience violence seek help.
In 2008, the United Nations Secretary-General launched the campaign UNITE by 2030 to End Violence against Women, which runs parallel to, and in support of, the 16 Days of Activism.
This year’s UNITE campaign theme is “UNITE! Invest to prevent violence against women and girls”. It focuses on the importance of financing prevention strategies to stop violence from occurring in the first place and calls on governments worldwide to share how they are investing in gender-based violence prevention.
UNITE has declared the 25th of each month an ‘Orange Day’ and calls on people everywhere to wear the colour orange to raise awareness and take action to prevent and end violence against women and girls in communities, at home, in public spaces, in schools and in workplaces.
Cllr Rose Thompson, Trafford Council’s Executive Member for Communities and Safety, said: “16 Days of Activism demonstrates the strong partnership arrangements Trafford has with our Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence services. For the third consecutive year, Trafford partners have worked collaboratively to deliver a comprehensive and innovative list of activities which is effective in raising awareness of gender-based violence, and preventing these forms of abuse for Trafford residents.
“Trafford Council promises to ensure that we continue to dedicate time, resource and funding to this campaign, so that we can reach more and more residents every year and aim to make Trafford a safer borough which eliminates gender-based violence.”
For more information, please go to
Domestic abuse (trafford.gov.uk)
Home | tdas | Trafford Domestic Abuse Services | Stretford, Manchester
TLC: Talk, Listen, Change - A Relationships Charity (talklistenchange.org.uk)
Home - Trafford Rape Crisis
Posted on Thursday 30th November 2023