This year Amnesty stood up for women’s right to be free from violence, harassment and abuse in all its forms. In the first part of 2018 we campaigned to stop the alarming levels of abuse and harassment women face on social media.
Our University groups held creative actions and stalls around the country during o-week, focusing on stopping online abuse of women. New and refreshed Amnesty women’s rights networks were established in every region and took action to hold Twitter to account for the scale of abuse faced by women on their platform.
In May, Twitter bowed to pressure and announced that it has revised its strategy for fighting online abuse including changes in the way it identify and displays tweets from accounts used by trolls.
Our national Women’s Rights Network is currently collecting actions for Amnesty’s 2018 Write for Rights cases – all of them are brave women who have faced persecution for protecting the rights of others. The Victorian Women’s rights network had an extremely successful stall at the St Kilda Markets, collecting 451 actions in support of women like Atena who is in prison in Iran for campaigning against the death penalty.
The national women’s network has big plans for 2019 – to find out more about how you can get involved in contact your region’s action centre or check out the online Activism Planner to RSVP to the next National Women’s Rights Catch-Up