Paris, In an effort to confront gender-based violence (GBV) on university campuses, UNESCO is set to introduce the Safer Campuses Campaign, targeting tertiary education stakeholders across the Eastern and Southern Africa region. The campaign will officially kick off with a virtual event on Tuesday, 26 March 2024, featuring Janet Mbugua, a renowned Kenyan media personality and GBV activist.

According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the campaign is a response to alarming statistics revealing that young women in the Eastern and Southern Africa region face a high incidence of GBV, with the World Health Organization noting that globally, one in three women have endured GBV at least once in their lives. The campaign recognizes the specific vulnerabilities of poor and working-class students and junior female staff within higher education institutions and seeks to address the exploitative practices they often encounter.

The Safer Campuses Campaign will utilize a comprehensive approach to engage various stakeholders, including government ministries, campus administrators, students, and staff, to actively participate in efforts to end GBV. By employing tools like pledges, dialogues, debates, survivor stories, and social media engagements, the campaign aims to break the silence surrounding GBV in higher education.

The initiative will feature on-campus activations, freely accessible open-source promotional materials, and a radio drama series to stimulate community solutions to GBV issues faced by students. Dialogues with campus influencers will further the conversation on social media platforms.

A dedicated campaign website will serve as a repository for all campaign materials, including a Digital Toolkit to bolster the campaign’s outreach, set to go live in April. The UNESCO Young People Today social channels will provide ongoing updates under the hashtags #SaferCampusesCampaign, #BreakingtheSilence, and #UnmuteGBV.

The campaign falls under the larger O3 PLUS project, which was initially launched by UNESCO with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Zambia and Zimbabwe in 2021 and has since expanded to include Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, and Uganda, with support from Sweden, Norway, and France. The project builds on the expansive Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (O3) program, which focuses on comprehensive sexuality education and aims to bolster health, education, and gender equality outcomes for the higher education sector.