As part of its project "We for Diversity and Equality", female cartoonists teamed up with the North-South Centre to denounce the many forms of violence against women that are still as considered as “normal”, due to harmful social norms and stereotypes.

Despite long-standing efforts to condemn and denounce violence against women, society continues to normalise it. The normalisation of violence against women refers to ideas and actions supporting, leading and maintaining such violence, which is perceived as 'normal' and becomes taken-for-granted or 'natural' in everyday life. This not only hinders identification, but, even when violence is identified, it frequently results in victim-blaming and silence. Maintained by personal, family, and social sexist values in mostly patriarchal societies, the normalisation of violence is a vicious cycle, which can only be stopped through awareness and education defying sexism and gender stereotypes.

At the occasion of the 2020 International day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, cartoonists from different parts of the globe shared their own vision of the normalisation of violence through drawings that have been shared on social medias. You can access the whole exhibition and discover the cartoonists here. 

To speak out against the normalisation of violence, we invite you to post in your social media under the hashtag #ItsNotNormal stories or initiatives that help others to identify normalised forms of violence.

 You can also join our team of artists and share with us your own drawing by email: [email protected]

 To go further defying sexism, check out the Council of Europe campaign “Sexism: See it. Name it. Stop it”

 To know more about the Council of Europe action to combat violence against women and domestic violence and the Istanbul Convention, click here.