Roses Revolution

Roses Revolution is an international movement against obstetric violence, originally founded in Spain in 2011 as La Revolución de las rosas. It designates an additional aspect to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, introduced in 1981 and an official UN awareness day since 2000. On this Roses Revolution Day, affected women place roses in front of hospitals and delivery rooms to protest against physical or psychological violence they have experienced during childbirth. Often the women include messages to involved physicians and midwives.

Roses Revolution reports about the depositions of roses on social media like Facebook and Instagram. Aim is to raise awareness about traumatic experiences caused by misconduct of medical staff during childbirth. Supporting this aim also includes other measures. In 2021, Roses Revolution Luxembourg published a video with reports of women who had suffered violence in French and Luxembourgish.

Roses Revolution is supported by the German National Committee of UN Women. A 2019 United Nations report by Dubravka Šimonović, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, about A human rights-based approach to mistreatment and violence against women in reproductive health services with a focus on childbirth and obstetric violence lists Roses Revolution as one of several initiatives globally. The Austrian Ministry of health and social affairs lists Roses Revolution as a point of call for affected women in their report on women's health of 2022.