Sports and gender equality champions from Association of the Nepalese Alumni from Australia (ANAA) and Nepali journalists donned orange jerseys to play a mixed-gender friendly football match in the capital on Saturday.

Dressed in orange, a colour symbolising a brighter future, free of violence, the audience demonstrated solidarity in eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls.

The game, organised to mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence and to celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women from 25 November to 10 December, ended with a common goal of raising voices to end gender-based violence. This year’s theme is Orange the World: End Violence against Women Now!

Addressing the opening of the friendly match, Australia’s Ambassador to Nepal, Felicity Volk said women and girls in general are particularly vulnerable to gender-based violence. This vulnerability is compounded when women identify as lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex, when they live with disabilities, are indigenous or from ethnic minorities, where they are migrants or refugees and when they are living through natural and other humanitarian crises.