Strike | Dance | Rise! To end violence against women

“One billion women violated is an atrocity. One billion women dancing is a revolution.”

Violence against women is an unchecked epidemic. According to the United Nations [PDF], 1 in 3 women worldwide will be beaten or raped in her lifetime. One billion women. Gender-based violence causes more deaths and disability among women aged 15 to 44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined.

Violence against women isn’t a local issue, or a cultural issue, or a national issue. It affects every woman in every country on the planet. It is a widespread pattern of women being devalued and dehumanized, regardless of where they live.

Victims of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, religious violence, economic violence, environmental violence, war zone violence. Rape and sexual assault, domestic abuse, incest, female genital mutilation, acid attacks, war crimes, child marriage, sexual slavery, forced childbirth, dowry murders, honor killings, murders of female infants, girls and women, lack of education, substandard or non-existent medical care, high unemployment, lack of proper housing or nutrition.

V-Day began in 1998 as a “global movement to end violence against women and girls.”

On February 14, 2013, the 15th anniversary of V-Day, women and men who support them — grassroots activists, writers, celebrities, politicians, artists, and ordinary citizens around the world — will join together and dance as a form of protest, until there are ONE BILLION RISING.

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and creator of V-Day:

“When One Billion bodies rise and dance on 14 February 2013, we will join in solidarity, purpose and energy and shake the world into a new consciousness.

Dancing insists we take up space. It has no set direction but we go there together. It’s dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive. It breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere at anytime with anyone and everyone. It’s free. No corporation can control it. It joins us and pushes us to go further. It’s contagious and it spreads quickly. It’s of the body. It’s transcendent.”

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Watch the trailer:

TRIGGER WARNING for violence, abuse.

Learn more at www.onebillionrising.org

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