In celebration of International Women’s Day, Unilever launched a campaign titled ‘Unmute.’ The campaign urges the action of ending the silence on domestic violence.
Aline Santos, the Global Executive VP of Marketing and Global Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Unilever interviewed American activist Tarana Burke on the 4th of March during an online conference via LinkedIn. Burke is an activist and founder of the vital and growing movement ‘Me Too.’
Unilever aims to tackle this issue in the corporate world by sharing its progressive policy when it comes to domestic violence encouraging other businesses and organisations to join them using their policy. This states that the company has agreed on supporting all employees who have experienced or are victims of domestic abuse.
According to the United Unions, the cases of domestic violence during lockdown has increased by 20%. Although 60% of domestic violence victims choose to remain silent, global estimates published by WHO indicates that about 1 in 3 (35%) of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence.
Burke started the movement #MeToo in 2016 to empower women who had experienced sexual violence by letting them know that they were not alone. The movement found global recognition after a tweet from actress Alyssa Milano went viral. Milano was one of the women who accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. Around 80 million people have used the #MeToo to share their stories across their social media platforms.
Burke is a survivor of child sexual abuse and sexual assault herself and chooses to refer to herself as a survivor, not a victim. ‘‘When you think about a victim it feels like you have succumbed to something, and when you think about [the word] survivor it feels like you have overcome something,’’ she said at the conference.
According to Burke, the correct way of showing a ‘survivor’ sympathy for what they’ve gone through is by asking simple questions such as ‘are you okay?’ do you need anything?’ and also by creating a safe space for them by saying ‘I just want to make myself available. I understand this is a hard thing that you are going through.’
Sexual abuse also occurs in workplaces. ‘’We need some corporate courage. Corporate needs to understand how these issues affect the material lives of the people they employ.’’ Burke says. According to Safeline, 52% of women have been victims of unwanted sexual behaviours at work, from groping to inappropriate jokes.
Business and organisations need to expand their understanding of how abuse affects people and own up for their mistakes when sexual abuse cases go unnoticed. ‘’For many this topic is unpalatable, and some businesses would prefer not to talk about it’’ Santos says.
The #MeToo organisation plans on launching several programmes this year. The upcoming programme, Survivor Leadership, is being created for a programme where people who have survived sexual violence can be trained be activists to help those in their community. The organisation will also create a survivor academy.