Religions for Peace advances common action among the world’s religious communities for peace. Attaining lasting peace requires action to confront violence and advance shared security. While respecting religious differences, Religions for Peace is aligning faith communities around the shared concern that in order to advance shared security and peace for all, there is need to end violence against women.

The Restoring Dignity - End Violence Against Women initiative draws on the commitment and resources of faith congregations, institutions, and communities of believers of diverse faith traditions to bring an end to violence against women. Actions by religious leaders and communities of faith can weave fabrics of respect for all persons, their potential, and their right to live a life free from violence.

Join us today to call upon the United Nations and the UN Secretary-General to strenthen partnerships with faith-based organizations and religious leaders, including religious men, in efforts to end violence against women. Religious leaders and communities offer tremendous moral and spiritual influence and thus hold a unique and unparalleled potential to be powerful agents of prevention, education and advocacy to end violence against women.

Strenthening partnerships with faith communities at national, regional and global levels can help support the work of the United Nations, governments, civil society and the private sector and speed up progress in eliminating violence against women. We urge you to appoint a faith liason to systematically mobilize people of different faiths to offer support and faith perspectives to your goals on ending violence against women.

Furthermore, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, we call on the United Nations to recall principles in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions and the UN treaties on the elimination of violence agaist women, particularly UN Security Council Resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888 and CEDAW—ratified by 185 UN member states.

We urge the United Nations to speed-up the implementation of these commitments by:

• Ensuring security for all women and girls and ending impunity. Support the enforcement of legislation for prevention and protection of women, including in conflict zones.  Amnesty for perpetrators of widespread sexual and other violence against women must be excluded from all settlements, or else the widespread use of rape, forced sterilization/ impregnation, and femicide as a tactic of war and/or genocide will continue unabated.
• Strengthening training for all UN staff on gender equality and violence against women.  Specialized officers and offices/ women’s desks ability to respond to violence against women must be an integral component of all UN missions.
  Increasing female presence in UN peacekeeping.
• Train all UN peacekeeping staff on violence against women, including the enforcement of zero tolerance for any and all infractions. 
• Increasing resources for the empowerment of women and girls.  The allocation of development incentives aimed specifically at women's work and women's projects is central to addressing vulnerability. Gender Responsive Budgeting should be an integral element in the planning, implementation and evaluation of all UN projects and offices.
• Compiling evidence on the linkages between HIV and different forms of violence against women and girls and on what works in order to inform policies and programmes—including in conflict and crises situations. In high HIV prevalence countries, leverage opportunities that HIV/AIDS programmes may offer to address issues of violence and increase women’s empowerment.

We—religious leaders and men and women of faith—pledge to take greater responsibility to restore the dignity of all women and girls and ending violence against women across the globe. In our thoughts and prayers are our sisters of all faiths, subjected to violence and degradation on every continent. We think particularly of the tragic ongoing conflicts in Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. 

Join us today by signing this appeal letter. We will carry your message to the UN Secretary-General on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.