16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

The Center for Change Agents for Sustainable Development is participating in the global campaign “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” as part of its ongoing commitment to protecting the rights of women and girls in Jordan and supporting national and international efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women.

Through this campaign, the Center works to:

Organize awareness-raising and community activities focused on breaking the silence around gender-based violence, particularly in rural and marginalized communities.

Conduct dialogue and training sessions for youth, women, and local leaders on legal rights, protection mechanisms, and the role of civil society in addressing violence.

Produce impactful media content on social media that highlights stories of change, feminist experiences, and advocates for policies that support women.

Build alliances with government institutions and women’s organizations to unify efforts and achieve a broader impact in combating violence.

Emphasize the role of youth as allies for change by engaging them in lobbying and advocacy campaigns calling for amendments to laws and policies that discriminate against women.

There are many stories of women working to save their communities, mired in the tragedies of discrimination, exclusion, deprivation, inequality, a faltering economy, unemployment, and poverty. Hence, the priority of establishing the “Rural Women’s Forum – Equal Movement in the Rural Region” came from this. We see the movement of civil society, especially women, as an urgent move towards institutionalizing women’s work in rural areas, embracing the defense of women’s rights, and confronting the violence, discrimination, and exclusion systematically practiced by some societies against women in rural communities. Thus, the Equal Movement was established in 2020, taking it upon itself to embrace the voices of the voiceless and create a sense of solidarity among rural communities to move toward change, achieving justice and equality, and adopting human rights standards to place rural women’s priorities on the agenda of policymakers at the local and national levels, in line with international standards for human rights and dignity.

As we reflect on the difficult reality of change, crises, resistance, and conflict in the Arab region, we hope to persevere, adapt to the changing reality, and mobilize national and international solidarity to sustain our collective work and shared achievements for the rural women’s community over the next three years. This year, we seek to continue deepening, developing, and building the rural women’s movement despite the intersecting challenges facing civil society and women in the face of oppression, violence, weakness, conflict, and instability in the region, which have made women more vulnerable to abuse, marginalization, and injustice.

From 2020 to 2024, we have delivered fearless interventions and published research, policy briefs, and analyses on the intersections of gender, justice, and equality in rural areas. We have embraced the pursuit of bold feminist agendas in coalition spaces—from local feminist politics to local politics. We look forward to taking this momentum to new heights, driven by the rural feminist struggle for gender justice in rural areas. We aim to ensure the sustainability of this rural feminist movement, achieving true recognition of women’s role as equal partners in development, political decision-making processes, party work, and local governance, based on justice and equality.

We seek to sustain solidarity and cooperation with partners and donors to fund our interventions to reduce the crimes of violence, discrimination, and exclusion against women in rural areas and marginalized areas, which need urgent intervention and an emergency response to support the protection of the future of rural women and to end all forms of discrimination, violence, and exclusion.