SDG Area: Gender equality
Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and therefore also half of its
potential. Yet today gender inequality persists everywhere and stagnates all social progress.
Providing women and girls with equal access to education, health care, decent work, andrepresentation in political and economic decision-making processes will fuel sustainableeconomies and benefit societies and humanity at large. While the world has achieved some
progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment, including equal access toprimary education between girls and boys, women and girls continue to suffer discriminationand violence in every part of the world.
Inequalities faced by girls can begin at birth. In some countries, often due to a preference
for sons, girls are deprived of access to health care or proper nutrition, leading to higher
mortality rates. As girls move into adolescence, gender disparities widen. Child marriage
affects girls far more than boys. Globally, nearly 15 million girls under age 18 are married
every year – or 37,000 each day.
Violence and sexual violence remain huge concerns in relation to gender equality. TheSDGs aim to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, which includes eliminating
all forms of violence and sexual exploitation in the public and private spheres.
NB: The SDGs include a broad range of specific targets relating to gender equality. The fulltargets can be found at http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/. Whilst
we can’t tackle all of the issues in one project, we can still make progress: we have aselected a specific challenge which you can help solve. Furthermore, due to the SDG’suniversal, indivisible and interlinked nature, progress in this area will contribute to progress
towards all seventeen goals.
What’s the challenge?
Around 120 million girls worldwide (slightly more than 1 in 10) have experienced forced
intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives. By far the mostcommon perpetrators of sexual violence against girls are current or former husbands,
partners or boyfriends. Some national studies show that up to 70 per cent of women haveexperienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.
In the majority of countries with available data, less than 40 per cent of the women who
experience violence seek help of any sort. Lack of access, lack of education, shame, andfear are all potential explanations for the lack of reporting.
What do we need you to do?
We want to mobilise and empower women around the world to report sexual violence. We
need a big idea that can deliver on this goal with a cyber-campaign.

Target Audience
You are speaking to an audience of digital natives. They use the internet frequently andfreely, communicating personal information with their friends and broader online
communities. Your audience shapes and contributes to a world in which we see
unprecedented levels of online sharing.
Key message
Speak up about sexual violence. We need to eliminate all forms of discrimination against
women, which means eliminating all forms of violence and sexual exploitation in the publicand private spheres.