Globally, one in three women and girls are raped and brutalized in their lifetime – that’s one billion women. These one billion women are our mothers, daughters, sisters, and those that will be bringing future generations into the world. Eve Ensler, world-renown author, playwright and activist, answered the call to this epidemic in 1998 by starting her V-Day campaign to end violence against women. This year on their 15th anniversary, V-Day (2.14.2013) launched it’s largest campaign to date, One Billion Rising, inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders. Over one billion people rose up in over 200 countries, and I am proud that here in Atlanta we had incredible participation and V-Day drew a large crowd to Centennial Park to Rise.
For 2014, Eve realized she wants to take One Billion Rising deeper and bigger. Through her amazing work at the City of Joy in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo), the rape capital of the world, Eve realized that women’s justice is not an isolated issue. You can’t look at women’s justice without looking at other forms of justice, like racial or climate justice.
For example, I recently participated in the International Women’s Earth and Climate Initiative Summit, a solutions-based, multi-faceted effort established to engage women worldwide to take action as powerful stakeholders in climate change and sustainability solutions. One woman spoke about how in her village they were now having to plant crops four times a year due to climate change related problems. Another woman spoke of water reserves drying up, and yet another on the widespread displacement of the indigenous people in the Amazon. These are burdens that fall disproportionately on the women of the world as the main caretakers of the family and of children.
So this year Eve is asking the world over to look to where you need justice and participate on V-Day, One Billion Rising for Justice. This will be a day of action and activism in which one billion of us will stand together and raise our voices as one to denounce injustice in all its forms against humanity and our planet. Women who are survivors of gender violence and those who love them will come together in community and solidarity outside places where we are entitled to justice. That includes colleges, schools, police stations, government offices, courtrooms, places of worship, military courts, embassies, sites of environmental injustice as well as our workplaces and our homes. Imagine, one billion women releasing their stories, dancing and speaking out at places where they need justice, where they need an end to violence against women and girls.
It is our moral imperative to end the violence and rape of our bodies and of Mother Earth. One Billion Rising for Justice is a day not only to root out and expose injustice, but a day that empowers and strengthens ourselves, as well as builds our communities by coming together and creating new friendships. I hope you will join me and many of Atlanta’s community leaders on 2.14.2014 for One Billion Rising for Justice Atlanta (www.OneBillionRisingAtlanta.org). Also, check out OneBillionRising.org to see pictures and inspiring video from all over the world from 2013’s One Billion Rising.
I am also excited to share that Eve Ensler will be honored in Atlanta by the King Center on January, 18 with the 2014 Coretta Scott King A.N.G.E.L. Award. Muhammad Ali and Khalida Brohi will also be honored at the event (http://salutetogreatness.eventbrite.com/). We have a lot to be proud of here in Atlanta, so join me on V-Day 2014 to RISE UP against injustice!