Say NO to Violence against Women

In 2008, UN Women launched Say NO to Violence against Women as a global public awareness and advocacy campaign connected to the UN Secretary-General’s campaign, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, with actress Nicole Kidman as the global spokesperson for the campaign. Throughout the East and Southeast Asia sub-region, individuals, civil society organizations and government leaders signed onto the cause. Out of 5 million signatures collected globally, over 4 million were collected from this sub-region alone.

In Thailand, Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha signed on to the Say NO to campaign on 5 September 2008 and accepted the role of UN Women Goodwill Ambassador for the Say NO Campaign in Thailand. Her Royal Highness played an instrumental role in rallying Thai people to the cause, and collected a total of 3,123,679 signatures nationally.  

PHASE 2: THE SAY NO- UNITE TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CAMPAIGN (2009)

Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women is a global call for action, launched in November 2009, on ending violence against women and girls. It is presented by UN Women as a contribution to advance the objectives of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women through social mobilization. UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman is the Spokesperson of Say NO at the global level.

How does Say NO – UNiTE work?
Say NO aims to trigger and highlight actions by individuals, governments and civil society partners. Actions can range from reaching out to students at schools, to volunteering at local shelters, advocating for legislation or donating funds towards programmes that protect women and girls from violence.

Say NO works through traditional as well as online networks and social media. The campaign website saynotoviolence.org offers a range of web-based and other tools to supports partners in their advocacy efforts, highlight their work to a global audience and inspires others. Every action will be recorded on the website to showcase the global groundswell of activity on the issue.

To see UN Women ESEARO activities, visit our profile.

The initial target was to reach 100,000 actions by March 2010, and the campaign far surpassed this goal.

The next milestone is to record 1 million actions in one year. Take action now and help us achieve this goal.

How can you take Action?