UNESCO Essay and visual arts contest
16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence
As part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual international
campaign taking place from 25 November to 10 December 2022, UNESCO is launching an essay and visual arts contest. Submissions are now open until 23 November 2022.
Background
To increase awareness and join efforts to end gender-based violence, the 16 Days of Activism campaign takes place each year globally. The campaign starts on the International Day Against Violence Against Women on 25 November and ends on the International Human Rights Day on 10 December. It was first launched at the inaugural Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 and is since then coordinated each year by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL).
To support this campaign, the United Nations is joining advocacy efforts through the UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women initiative. The objective is to galvanise advocacy efforts to end the global pandemic of violence against women and girls.
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.1 Recent global estimate shows that on average, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own family every 11 minutes.2 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.
3 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.
1 WHO (2021) Violence against Women Prevalence Estimates
2 UNODC (2021) Killings of women and girls by their intimate partner or other family members. Global estimates 2020
3 UN Women (2021) Measuring the shadow pandemic: violence against women during COVID-19
Essay and visual arts contest theme
UNESCO is inviting young people from O3 PLUS participating countries to contribute to raise awareness to address gender-based violence by launching an essay and visual arts contest. Young people are encouraged to take action by writing, drawing, making a video, photographing, painting about combating gender-based violence. The contest is an opportunity to draw attention to the unacceptable level of violence against women and girls; to voice their experience and/or express solidarity to the cause and to advocate for strengthening mechanisms 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.
Competition eligibility
To be eligible you must be able to answer “yes” to these statements:
- You are between 18 to 26 years old
- You are living in one of the O3 PLUS participating countries: Kenya, Namibia, South Africa,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
- All submitted work must be wholly original and may not infringe upon the copyright or other intellectual property or other legal or moral rights of any other person or entity.
Top two from each category will be selected (two essay and two artwork) from each country and will be awarded exciting prizes. Then of the four the top two will be published by UNESCO and will be eligible for the regional competition, where top 2 regional submissions will be selected.
Applications requirements
All submissions must be sent electronically in English by Wednesday 23 November 2022. Every essay or visual artwork submission must respond to the theme of gender-based violence. Please make sure to follow all requirements, your application will be considered ineligible for an award if you fail to comply with the requirements.
You can submit your work either under track A or track B.
Track A: Essay
- Essay must be 700 words or less in English.
- Must be typed, and contain a title
- Essay may be in any style (prose, poem, academic, literary) as long as it is in line with
the theme.
- If you use quotations, please include the reference at the bottom of the essay
(references are not included in the word count)
- Must be original and unpublished. Plagiarism will disqualify your work for an award
- When discussing gender-based violence, take a survivor centered approach and ensure
that confidentiality is maintained in accordance with the wishes of surviving family
members and that their consent is obtained. Adopt a “do no harm” approach, always
considering potential impacts on survivors of violence.
- Copyright of all the content submitted for this competition remains with the respective
entrants. However, in consideration of their entry into the competition, each entrant
grants a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual licence to UNESCO to feature any or all of the
submitted content in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional
material, including social media.
Must be submitted online by 23 November 2022 through the link below:
Track B: Visual Arts
- This can include video, photography, drawing, painting
- Submit only one image in high resolution (file size minimum 1MB) or one video of no
more than 120 seconds.
- File format: For images JPEG (JPG) or PNG only. For video MP4, MPEG or MOV
- Should be submitted with an artistic statement (no more than 300 words) describing or
commenting your work. It is an opportunity to explain your artwork, what does it mean and
what messages you want to highlight through your artwork.
- When discussing gender-based violence, take a survivor centered approach and ensure
that confidentiality is maintained in accordance with the wishes of surviving family
members and that their consent is obtained. Adopt a “do no harm” approach, always
considering potential impacts on survivors of violence.
- A release form is absolutely required for photos or videos of children under the age of
18 and survivors of violence. A legal guardian must give permission for the use of photos
or videos of minors.
- Copyright of all the content submitted for this competition remains with the respective
entrants. However, in consideration of their entry into the competition, each entrant grants
a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual licence to UNESCO to feature any or all of the
submitted content in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional
material, including social media.
Must be submitted online by 23 November 2022 through the link below:
