A Silent Vigil
A Silent Vigil was held in Wolverhampton's Civic Centre Square on the 10th December to mark the end of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence and the thousands of lives lost and ruined all over the world as a result of Gender Violence.
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women as a violation of human rights.
This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Massacre in Montreal in which an enraged gunman opened fire in a local college screaming ‘I hate feminists’ before killing 14 women who were largely female engineering students. At the time the Montreal Massacre became known as the ‘galvanizing moment’ in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women.
The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organising strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women. This is done by raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels, by strengthening local work around violence against women and by creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women.
The Haven Wolverhampton (www.havenrefuge.org.uk), in partnership with WOW, planned and delivered a range of events across the 16 Days period. The Silent Vigil marked the end of this programme of events. The vigil opened with a speech from Kath Rees, CEO of The Haven Wolverhampton, and included poetry reading and music interspersed with minutes of silence to remember the thousands who have lost their lives as a result of Gender Violence. Attendees wore black as a mark of respect and posed for photographs with white t shirts, which had Gender Violence news headlines written upon them. Some of these headlines included: "Killed for loving the wrong man", "Woman found dead after rape claim" and "Murders that could have been prevented".
Women's organisations, including The Haven Wolverhampton and WOW, will keep on remembering these women and campaigning until we have the social, political and economic environment in which women are supported and perpetrators are held accountable but ultimately where Gender Violence is eliminated. PLEASE JOIN US!
