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The Vagina Monologues is a showcase of a few individual women’s stories about their bodies, as compiled by Eve Ensler. But V-day is about women. It’s about anyone who identifies as a woman. V-day is about the women on this campus who are brave enough to stand up in the middle of the chapel and say “vagina”. It’s about supporting the women in our local communities who endure domestic and sexual violence. It’s about the 1 in 3 women globally who survive violence. And this year, it’s about women in the Congo.
The Spotlight Campaign this year is again on women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the war in the DRC is formally over, women are still under the constant threat of violence. The violence is coming from multiple sources; all armed groups in the conflict have committed acts of sexual violence and even UN personnel have been implicated in perpetuating the violence. The extent of this violence is hard to estimate, but in one province alone, local health centers report that an average of 40 women are raped every day.
Gender-based violence is being used as a tactic of war and women are suffering from sexual slavery, forced prostitution, kidnapping and rape. Even when the war is over, women must endure this violence long-term. Survivors of sexual violence suffer severe psychological and physical health consequences, but they face barriers for justice in stigmatizing and under-capacitated court systems, and STIs and HIV remain untreated with the absence of a solid health infrastructure in the DRC.
But women are still supporting each other. Part of the profits from every Vagina Monologues performance this year will go to the City of Joy. This facility located in Bukavu, will support and train women to be community activists. Just down the road from the Panzi hospital, City of Joy will be a place of community healing though group therapy, storytelling, dance, theater, sex education and economic empowerment. Women can turn their pain into power and reclaim their communities.
V-day’s mission is to prevent sexual violence against women, and we can all reclaim our bodies as sites of empowerment. All V-day events are about coming together as a community to really interrogate how we can prevent sexual violence and empower all bodies. It’s about the women in the Congo, it’s about our whole community. It’s about you.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/the-four-months-since-hil_b_406494.html