Advocates in Australia are using a global event to raise awareness about eliminating violence against women by changing attitudes.
Australia’s main event has been held in Melbourne. Last year’s event brought 2000 people to Federation Square and one of the event’s organisers, Tamar Spatz, is hoping for an even better turn out this year.
She says the event is an opportunity to change the mindset of men who marginalise women.
“I think that there is perhaps a lack of education in terms of how we engage with each other from a respectful place allowing for women and their bodies to have autonomy in terms of how they move through the world and their right to feel safe and protected.”
A global discussion
One Billion Rising is a global organisation created by Eve Ensler, the award-winning playwright of "The Vagina Monologues" aimed at ending injustice towards women and girls.
The "One Billion" in their name refers to the UN statistics surrounding violence against women. One billion women are subjected to violence in their lifetimes.
According to the UN, one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused by an intimate partner in the course of her lifetime.
Ms Spatz says One Billion Rising has been able to connect people around the world, turning it into a global discussion beyond the day’s event.
“Such diverse communities are coming together and giving voice to this issue,” she says. “I’m seeing networks forming locally, internationally, nationally whereby people are able to exchange strategies, whereby people are able to educate one another and feel empowered to tell their stories.
Ms Spatz says the campaign has seen real change because it has given people the opportunity to speak out who may have been afraid to do so before.
“Those conversations are out there, whereas many years ago there would have been such secrecy and shame associated with violence, abuse and exploitation and now that’s no longer the case.”
Though the event is geared at liberating women, Ms Spatz says she has seen a lot of men speaking out and supporting the campaign.
“We’ve seen it through our social media networks, that there are a lot of men supporting the page, there are a lot of men hoping to be involved. We’ve also seen it from some of our higher profile contributors to the campaign in terms of their messages of support.”
Chief of the Australian Army Lieutenant General David Morrison has also lent his voice to the campaign along with Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Ken Lay.
