On 14 February 2013, one billion people in 207 countries rose and danced to demand an end to violence against women and girls.
On 14 February 2014, the efforts are escalating, with the V-Day movement calling on women and men everywhere to rise, release, dance, and demand justice.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches is calling on its members to join in this movement.
“To speak out against gender violence is a matter of justice, and justice is at the heart of Jesus’s Gospel,” says Dora Arce-Valentin, the WCRC’s executive secretary for justice and partnership. “So, raising up our voices together with millions around the world is a way to witness our faith and proclaim good news to the ones God loves the most, the victims of injustice.”
• Learn more about One Billion Rising for Justice
Organizers of the event say that, “One Billion Rising for Justice is a global call to women survivors of violence and those who love them to gather safely in community outside places where they are entitled to justice—courthouses, police stations, government offices, school administration buildings, work places, sites of environmental injustice, military courts, embassies, places of worship, homes, or simply public gathering places where women deserve to feel safe but too often do not. It is a call to survivors to break the silence and release their stories—politically, spiritually, outrageously—through art, dance, marches, ritual, song, spoken word, testimonies, and whatever way feels right.”
“V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls,” says the V-Day website. “V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation, and sex slavery.”
• Learn more about the V-Day Movement
According to Wikipedia, “To date, the V-Day movement has raised over US$80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. The ‘V’ in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.”
For more information, please contact Rev. Dora Arce-Valentin, the WCRC’s executive secretary for justice and partnership: dav@wcrc.eu.