footnotes.¹

Today marks four brutal years since Russia’s unprovoked and devastating full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We cannot bring ourselves to write about today as history ; it remains an ongoing and painful reality. When we created FemSMS in May 2022 we did not imagine that this brutal war would stretch into a fourth year. Like many, we believed — perhaps needed to believe — that international resolve would arrest what felt unthinkable. While it seems now that four years is long enough for headlines to thin, we know that for those living through bombardment, displacement, and grief, there is no such thinning. As we mark this anniversary, we are launching our FemSMS app with hope that it offers solace to those living through the continued Russian bombardment that destroys Ukrainian infrastructure, placing entire cities under repeated attack and energy systems fragile or failing, while families are displaced again and again, constantly reorganizing their lives around uncertainty, outages, and int...

A message from Footage's Executive Director & Co-Founder, Dr. Kristen Ali Eglinton As 2025 draws to a close, I return to a simple truth: we are still standing. This year tested us – financially, politically, emotionally – in ways that brought Footage, and so many feminist organizations, painfully close to the edge. Many of you walked with us through that reality. I shared much of this in our Giving Tuesday letter just weeks ago, when I described how precarious this year had become – describing how a world where one in three organizations working to end gender-based violence has been forced to suspend or shut down programs due to disappearing funding. In a landscape where large swathes of our sector have been forced to close their doors, you insisted that Footage remain alive. Earlier this month, I wrote that there were moments this year – watching hatred and dehumanization gather force – when it felt as if a small but vital light might flicker out, in our sector, in public li...

Today, Human Rights Day, closes 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence—a reminder that gendered violence is not a “women’s issue,” not a separate category, and not a marginal concern. It is a human rights violation—one of the most pervasive and insidious globally. In too many places, these rights remain fragile, contested, or actively under attack. Over these past days we’ve shared voices through our  What Would You Say to Her?  campaign—strangers speaking to strangers, sometimes survivor to survivor, across borders, languages, and lived realities. This is a conversation, carried from community to community. Throughout the 16 Days, Footage's online events have been centered in Central Asia, particularly Kyrgyzstan. This builds on our work where, since last November, we have been working alongside partners—crisis centers, government ministries, advocates, and those with lived experience—to understand what is working in the national response to violence against women,...

This year, Footage—along with countless other feminist organizations—faces unprecedented financial hardship. One third of global groups working against gender-based violence have had to shut down or pause their work following drastic funding cuts, according to UN Women .​ This year, Footage has faced the most significant contraction in nearly 20 years. Primary grant support from the U.S. Department of State was implicated in international cuts, and many philanthropies and funders have paused or reduced giving as their own resources were reduced. Like so many feminist and women-led organizations, we have felt the impact at the very core of our work: in how we staff, what we can plan, and the emotional and practical labor required just to keep the doors open. This has meant putting some of our essential work on hold at the very moment communities are asking for and needing more.​ Yet the urgency of what people are living through has not lessened. In the places where we are present, women...

“... violence towards women will never stop if we keep silence.” F., GTG Kazakhstan, 2022 Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence . Since 1991, this global campaign has reminded us that when communities stand together, violence can no longer hide in silence or isolation. Around the world — including in the places many of us call home — women, girls, LGBTQIA+ people, and people living through conflict and displacement face escalating violence and dehumanizing rhetoric. Too often this is framed as something that happens “over there,” yet it is present “here” as well, shaping fear, anxiety, and normalizing the idea that some lives are treated as less worthy of protection. At Footage, these 16 Days matter because community matters. Survivors who take part in Footage’s interventions often tell us they long not only for safety, but for belonging: to be believed, to be witnessed, a...