A young woman was brutally gang raped and murdered in a town outside Cape Town this week. Anene Booysen is one of thousands of women and children who are savagely sexually abused in South Africa, where a rape takes place every 26 seconds.
On Friday, the One Billion Rising (OBR) movement, founded by Tony Award winning, filmmaker, playwright and globally celebrated feminist and gender activist, Eve Ensler, is hosting a media briefing in Cape Town to share details of the OBRSA campaign and action plan that will emerge out of a series of dialogues on the prevalence of domestic and child abuse, rape and corrective rape and look at interventions needed as a result of a lack of institutional and government support.
It will be chaired by Pramilla Vassen and attend by OBRSA Cape Town co-ordinator, Zubeida Shaik, members of the Dance for Life and Red Zebra organisations, Aadielah Maker from the Sonke Gender Justice Network, Merle O’Brien from Odissi Niketan Africa and the award-winning actress and OBRSA Cape Town ambassador, Andrea Dondolo.
Friday’s event will also see supporters learn the OBR theme song, Break the Chain, and the dance that accompanies the music and the message. Afterwards, District Six Museum’s Bonita Bennett will welcome guests to a debate about ‘New conversations to solve old problems’.
Time: 12:00 noon
Date: Friday 8th February 2013
Venue: Zula Bar, 98 Long Street (Tel: 021 424 2442)
About the OBR campaign
The United Nations states that one in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That’s more than one billion mothers, daughters, sisters, partners, and friends that are or will be violated.
On 14 February 2013 it will be V-Day’s 15th Anniversary. We are inviting ONE BILLION women and those who love them to WALK OUT, DANCE, RISE UP, and DEMAND an end to this violence. ONE BILLION RISING will move the earth, activating women and men to dance across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers and our solidarity across borders. Join V-Day and ONE BILLION RISING today and SAY NO to violence against women and girls. To sign up and learn more, visit www.onebillionrising.org
In recent years the achievements of the VDay and Vagina Monologues were revisited, and One Billion Rising was started early in 2012 to broaden the nature, scope and reach of global efforts to end violence against women and children.
- To date over 190 countries around the world have demonstrated their support for the campaign.
- 13 000 Organisations worldwide have registered their support for global and local efforts
- Over 4 500 events are registered for VDay, 14 February 2013, with thousands more not registered, many already completed to create awareness of the campaign, and others being done as a lead-up to the main events
