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This is not just a day; it is a movement—an urgent global call to recognise, support, and protect boys from sexual violence. We believe that protecting boys from sexual violence complements and strengthens the essential efforts being made to prevent violence against ALL children, including girls. Your signature can help ensure that boys who have experienced sexual violence receive the recognition, support, and justice they deserve.
Why do we need a UN recognised International Day?
Since 2021, Family’s Blue Umbrella Day Campaign has been raising awareness and advocating for change to ensure fewer boys are sexually abused. In 2024, the global campaign reached over a million people, including men and boys with lived experience of childhood sexual violence.
Declaring April 16th as Blue Umbrella Day as an International Day will:
- Raise Awareness: Highlight the issue on a global scale, challenge harmful gender norms, and foster open dialogue about the sexual violence boys experience.
- Promote Research and Policy Development: Encourage greater investment in research on this issue to support the development of evidence-based policies to meet the needs of boys who have experienced sexual violence.
- Ensuring Justice and Support to Survivors: Advocate for accessible, effective, and safe support services that cater specifically to the needs of boys.
- Foster Global Solidarity: Bring together nations, civil society organisations, networks, funding bodies, academia, media, service providers, communities, people with lived experiences and others in a united effort to prevent sexual violence against boys and amplify their voices.
- Commitment of member countries/nations: putting in place mechanisms that can help follow up actions, into reports at the UN in order to develop standard procedures on the issue globally.
Sign our petition here
