South African actress Andrea Dondolo on Table Mountain in Cape Town, as part of One Billion rising, 
to call for an end to violence against women and girls.


Attribution: Lindsay Mgbor/Department for International Development [CC-BY-2.0 
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

We’ve developed from the primitive man in the dark ages to a highly civilized society of the information age. Women, who were meant to partner men in all endeavours, have risen from being the weaker sex to an equally contributing one that today competes with men in all areas of life: be it work, politics, sports or business. But the question is: Is the condition of women really worth saying that we’ve made the progress? Let’s take a look at some of the statistics that will make you wonder if this is really a “civilized” society:

• 35% of girls and women globally experience some kind of physical and sexual violence during the course of their lives
• Around 120 million girls worldwide, a ratio which is greater than one in ten, have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts during their lifetime
• Even in a nation like the US, 83% of girls in grades 8 to 11 have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their schools
• More than 133 million girls and women have experienced some or the other form of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in 29 nations of Africa and Middle East, where this practise is most common.

The idea isn’t to point out at the negatives, but to make it clear that there’s still a lot to be done. In line with this, the United Nations (UN) observes November 25th as the day we observe the International Day to eliminate Violence against women. November 25th has been chosen to commemorate the Mirabal sisters, four sisters from the Dominican Republic who protested against dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. On November 25th, 1960, they were assassinated, which turned them into symbols of feminism.

The purpose of observing this day is so that people spread awareness about the increasing violence against women throughout the world and spread information that the women globally are subject to numerous incidents of rape, domestic violence, physical abuse, and various other types of violence. It also highlights the fact that the issues of violence are hidden in most of the developing and under-developed nations.

Women violence is seen by many as a global pandemic, which raises further issues like human rights violation, spreading of HIV/AIDS, and a blow to the peace and security the world aims at maintaining.

Vietnam has recently launched a campaign to prevent violence against women for the purpose of this day. It is worth noting here that Vietnam is among the most affected countries due to violence and exploitation of women. In fact, in the year 2012, Vietnam lost an estimated 1.8 percent of its GDP in productivity because of this issue. Australia also has round-the-year campaign for eradicating violence against women, centred around this day.

This year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s campaign UNiTE has framed the theme of “Orange Your Neighborhood” for this day. It encourages people to reach out to their neighbors, sandwich shops, street vendors, practically anywhere, and spread the message.

Do you want to help? You can help by spreading awareness to change the thinking of the people and making them knowledge-able about this rising problem. You could travel round the world, in those regions where women are still treated as commodities, and spread the message.

Everyone can help in his or her own ways, and no help goes waste. If you want to rise up to the cause, you’re most welcome to travel to far off places. For instance, you could go to Africa where the severity of the problem is the highest. You could visit our partner site mytravelmaps.org and book your trips for charity purposes.

Let’s join hands and eliminate violence against women, forever!