As part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, UNESCO launched an essay and visual arts contest. UNESCO invited young people from O3 PLUS participating countries to contribute to raising awareness to address gender-based violence. Young people were encouraged to take action by writing, drawing, making a video, photographing, painting about combating gender-based violence.
UNESCO is really proud to announce the two regional winners:
For the essay, we are pleased to announce that Shirley Ngetich, 20 years old, University of Nairobi, Kenya, has been selected as the regional winner with her essay “The Thorn in my Flesh”, .
For visual art, we are pleased to announce that Nomathamsanqa Naomie Ndlovu, 23 years old, National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe has been selected as the regional winner with her video.
We were very impressed by the work of all students and selecting two winners was not easy!
The contest was an opportunity to draw attention to the unacceptable level of violence against women and girls. Submissions were open until 23 November 2022 for students from Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Youth voiced their experience and express solidarity to the cause and advocated to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence - physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual violence - against women and girls. Ending gender-based violence is only possible if we join action to make this vision a reality.
Violence against women and girls remains the most widespread human rights violation worldwide. It is estimated that 1 in 3 women is subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner, non-partner or both across their lifetime. Recent global estimate shows that on average, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes. The COVID-19 pandemic has even further exacerbated violence against women and girls. Since the pandemic began, 6 in 10 women felt that sexual harassment in public spaces has worsened.
Violence against women and girls is preventable. In 2021, UNESCO launched the Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future Plus project (O3 PLUS). The project aims to ensure that young people in higher and tertiary education institutions in sub-Sharan Africa realize positive health, education, and gender equality outcomes. The project aims to substantially reduce gender-based violence through access to comprehensive sexuality education and to sexual and reproductive health and rights services for students while advocating for policy and practice changes to make campus safe and inclusive. UNESCO essay and visual arts contest was a good opportunity for young people from O3 PLUS participating countries to raise awareness on how to address gender-based violence.
The winning video:
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UNESCO essay and visual arts contest for the 16 Days of Activism against GBV
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