16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence is an international campaign to challenge violence against women and girls. The campaign runs every year from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day.

For 16 Days of Activism 2020, DefendDefenders collaborated with AfricanDefenders, Encrypt Uganda, Women of Uganda Network, Digital Literacy Initiative, and Digital Human Rights Lab. For 16 days, we shared stories of victims of online gender-based violence (GBV) on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram under the hashtag #SayNoToOnlineGBV. On the final day, we shared interviews with Women Human Rights Defenders fighting online GBV (see campaign contents below).

In a policy paper, written in the context of this campaign, we assessed women’s safety in the digital space in Uganda and made recommendations to the Ugandan government, to international actors, and to civil society.