Today we feature a special Silver Lining post to share ten uplifting stories about using Mother’s Day as a catalyst for action on the issue of violence against women.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 1: Actor Javier Bardem talks about violence against women in the Congo, where rates of sexual violence against women and girls are the highest in the world. In a PSA for Raise Hope for Congo, Mr. Bardem asks people, on Mother’s Day, to give mothers and daughters in the Congo a chance for peace.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 2: Nicholas Kristof writes in the New York Times about people who have chosen to “commemorate motherhood by saving the lives of mothers halfway around the world.” His story focuses on Edna, a nurse and midwife in Somalia who provides family planning services and works to end female genital mutilation.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 3: Florence Crittenton Programmes in the U.S. state of South Carolina has started an interesting initiative. Called “Adopt a Mom to Honour a Mom,” the programme enables donors to sponsor a young mom to help end the destructive cycle of violence and poverty.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 4: The idea of a creating a Mother’s Day gift with meaning is behind this idea from Inspired Gift Giving: small cello bags filled with toiletries, cosmetics, or fragrance for the women in a shelter. Full details are here, in a post called Honour Victims of Domestic Violence This Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 5: A mobile spa in the U.S. state of Michigan is also hoping to pamper women in a local shelter. The Lavender Mobile Spa will spend Mother’s Day weekend at HAVEN, a centre that counsels victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 6: In Rhode Island, also in the U.S., the Domestic Violence Resource Center of South County holds a Mother’s Day Garden Campaign to raise money for victims of domestic violence. The campaign sells cards and put out a call to local artists for a design that signifies the theme of “new beginning.” The winning design was submitted by an artist who is an abuse survivor herself.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 7: Still on the theme of gifts, middle school students in the American city of Stamford, CT are teaming up with a moving company in the Movers for Moms programme. The programme collects everyday necessities, such as toiletries, soaps, lotions and baby formula, and donates them to local shelters.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 8: A consortium of domestic violence activists in San Francisco, CA held a Mother’s Day press conference on May 5 to ensure that funding for their services is maintained despite the city’s budget deficit. They noted that because of their work, domestic violence homicides are down 80%!

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 9: The Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence in Corvallis, OR held an upbeat event on May 7. Called  the Mother’s Day Run/Walk for Safe Families, the event included a 5K run/walk and a Family Fun Fair. Funds raised help sustain the organisation’s shelter, advocacy services and education programme.

Mother’s Day Silver Lining Story 10: Lastly, a lovely fundraising and awareness-raising idea from a group of women’s shelters in Ontario, Canada. The annual Daisy of Hope campaign runs during the month of May. The campaign sells daisy pins as part of a “province-wide public awareness and fund raising initiative aimed at ending the vicious cycle of domestic abuse and promoting violence-free living.”

We wish a mothers everywhere a happy and peaceful Mother’s Day full of love and laughter!

With Mothering Sunday just around the corner, florists are doing roaring business, restaurants are booked solid and chocolates are flying off the shelves.

Our mothers – and mother figures – are very lucky indeed… and we are lucky to have them in our lives, be they our biological mother, adopted mother, foster mother, grandmother, godmother and even aunts.

For those searching for an alternative to the flowers, chocolate and meal-out options, or perhaps for those who are searching for a meaningful way to commemorate Mother’s Day while supporting the cause to end violence against women, here are 10 alternatives to the traditional gifts:

Alternative to Flowers 1: Volunteer together! If your mom is active in your community – or even if she is not – it’s worth suggesting to her that the two of you could spend Mother’s Day morning volunteering at your local women’s shelter or rape crisis centre to help bring some joy to the mothers and children there. Have a nice lunch or dinner together afterwards.

Alternative to Flowers 2: Spread  Some Sweetness. If you and your mom enjoy baking, consider baking a batch of cookies, muffins, brownies, pies, cake and/or other sweet treats for the women and children at your local women’s shelter. Deliver it to the shelter in person and ask to help distribute it to the women and children. Share the experience of spreading smiles amongst mothers and their kids who have not had a reason to smile in a very long time.

Alternative to Flowers 3: Become Patrons. Get together with your mom to select a anti-Violence Against Women nonprofit/charity which you can jointly support for one whole year. Support can come in the form of volunteering together for a year, making recurring small donations to them or taking part in their campaigns.

Alternative to Flowers 4: Share the Day. If you are taking your mom out for a Mother’s Day meal and you know a woman who is suffering from domestic violence or recovering from rape, consider inviting her along and treating her to a meal. This may be the only respite she can get and it’s an understated way to show that you both care if you feel uncomfortable about talking about it.

Alternative to Flowers 5: Smart Shopping. If you prefer to buy your mother a beautiful gift, consider buying products from companies, co-ops and non-profits whose products and merchandise are sold to raise funds to support the end to violence against women. Some recommendations: Emerge Global has a jewellery range made by sexual abuse survivors in Sri Lanka. If your mom prefers perfumes etc, Avon is one of the few companies whose charitable foundation focuses on ending domestic violence.

Alternative to Flowers 6: Get Reading! If your mom is an avid reader, consider getting her a book (or e-book if she has an e-Reader) about violence against women. Some recommendations: Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky, Lisa Shannon’s A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to be a Woman and Nujood Ali’s I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.

Alternative to Flowers 7: Get Watching! If your mom is a movie fan/film buff, consider getting her a movie which includes themes about violence against women as a thoughtful Mother’s Day gift. The movie need not be a no-holds-barred documentary, but it could be something ultimately uplifting that both of you could watch together and talk about later on. Some recommendations: Practical Magic weaves themes of dating violence into a magical setting, What’s Love Got To Do With It showcases Tina Turner’s journey from an abused wife to independent superstar. If your mom is a documentary fan, try Sin by Silence by Olivia Klaus.

Alternative to Flowers 8: Get writing! If you’re a regular blogger with an interest in women’s issues including violence against women, take up the challenge of writing a thoughtful Mother’s Day blog post dedicated to your mom while raising awareness about violence against women. Post it. Share it. Submit it for a Mother’s Day blog carnival. Talk about it with your mom.

Alternative to Flowers 9: The YouTube Declaration. Get your digital recording camera out to record a YouTube declaration against violence against women dedicated to your mom. Submit it to The Pixel Project’s Wall of Support campaign and share the YouTube link with your mom.

Alternative to Flowers 10: Donate in Her Name. Make a small donation to a charity/nonprofit organisation working to end violence against women of your mom’s choice in her name. Send a cheque to your local anti-Violence Against Women nonprofit. Alternatively, go digital by donating to online fundraisers such as our Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign. A little as US$5.00 can buy a child in Women’s Aid Organisation’s refuge two nutritious hot meals per day or provide a free NCADV handbook for U.S. domestic violence survivors to help them get back on their feet again.

– Regina Yau, Founder and President, The Pixel Project

Today is World Human Rights Day and I find myself smiling and feeling inspired by this short video by The Girl Effect:

Some of the more cynical amongst us might think that this video, while all snazzy visuals and catchy tunes, is unrealistic because it makes the solution to the far-reaching and complicated impact of poverty on girls seem so simple.

It is because it is a common sense solution that has been staring us in our faces.

It isn’t because even the most obvious solutions take a lot more time and effort than we think.

When it comes to violence against women, which has long been a widespread, deep-seated, and chronic human rights violation that is culturally and socially sanctioned to various degrees in communities worldwide, it is important to remember this:

That change and the solutions for change may take more time and effort that our current Instant Gratification tendencies would like.

You can’t have change appear overnight, just because we snap our fingers, demanding for it NOW. Not the real long-lasting change that is needed to truly end violence against women. Changing the world – to rid it of violence against women – is a long hard journey where we have to face up to some of the worst atrocities and the ugliness of humanity, no doubt about it.

Yet we mustn’t let all that sour us on humanity and embitter us about the world to the point where we attack potential but non-traditional allies (men, religious leaders) or succumb to Ostrich Syndrome (i.e. burying one’s head in the sand, hoping that ignoring the violence will make it go away).

Instead, we should, as Annie Lamott points out: wait and watch and work and never give up.

Hope is needed more than ever in a cause as difficult as the cause to end violence against women in our communities and across the world.  If we do not hope or see any hope for humanity, we will be admitting defeat and we cannot let cynicism and jadedness take us down and paralyse us with the finger-pointing and Eeyore pessimism that comes with it.

With hope, we will be able to take action and to keep ourselves motivated no matter what we have to face to end violence against women.

With hope, we will be able to see the opportunities and possibilities that will give us more creative solutions and momentum for ending violence against women wherever we are in the world.

With hope, even if we know that the change we seek will not come in our lifetime, we know that we will create enough momentum and enough legacy so it will become the reality for future generations.

I know this much is true because whenever I encounter anyone who tells me that violence against women is too intractable a problem to solve, here is the story I tell them:

The women on both sides of my family went from bound feet to Rhodes scholar in 4 generations. It took roughly one whole century for us to get to where we are but we did it because the women who came before me refused to give up hope:

My paternal great-grandmother’s feet were halfway through the foot-binding process when the practice was made taboo for good and she ensured that my paternal grandmother was educated.

My maternal grandmother was illiterate and survived over half a century of an abusive marriage but she ensured that my mother and her sisters all finished high school. My mother in turn ensured that I went much further than her and I did – I graduated from Oxford University about 100 years after my great-grandmother’s feet were still being bound.

So don’t tell me we can’t end violence against women. The women on both sides of my family have proven that when there is hope and determination, we can ensure that our daughters do not suffer the same fate that we do.

And I come from one of the most misogynistic and patriarchal cultures in the world – Chinese culture.

I am determined to carry this legacy of hope, determination and strength forward. The positive changes to the status of women that I have witnessed in my own family is what I am determined to achieve when I started The Pixel Project – that the next generation of little girls (and the generation after them) will eventually never suffer violence just because they were born female.

Yes, those changes are not perfect – my family still suffers from the trickle-down effect of the violence that came before and we still struggle with cultural traditions when it comes to men’s attitudes towards women – but it is real, solid change and it is progress.

So here I am, on World Human Rights Day, sending out this message of hope and hoping that you will join in the fight to end violence against women instead of succumbing to bitterness, cynicism and apathy.

Solutions and ideas don’t run by themselves – they need us to make them a reality and to make them work for the 1 in 3 women and girls worldwide who face gender-based violence in their lifetimes.

After all, if WE don’t step up, who will?

It truly is time to stop violence against women. Together.

– Regina Yau, Founder and President, The Pixel Project

Twenty-one years ago today, a lone gunman who blamed feminists for ruining his life walked into Ecole Polytechnique in Montréal and killed fourteen women. Two years later, the federal government of Canada established December 6 as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

On the twentieth anniversary of the tragedy last year, a writer for The Globe and Mail, a major paper in Canada, stated that women in Canada are doing well, especially compared to women in other parts of the world, and that we in Canada should just “get a grip and move on.”

Her article stung me then and still does. It is true that many women in Canada have a good life, and that we have opportunities here that women around the world do not. But that does not mean that we can simply get a grip and move on from the events of December 6, 1989.

The National Day of Remembrance is not about a single incident of misogyny and violence. It is about remembering the women whose stories do not make headlines. Here are some numbers from Canada that reflect the reality for those women:

• 51% of Canadian women have had at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. http://ow.ly/3cXDH

• Over 86% of all criminal sexual assaults in Canada are against women. http://ow.ly/3cXUO

• Every minute of every day, a Canadian woman or child is being sexually assaulted. http://ow.ly/3cXDH

• 11% (1.4 million) Cdn. women 15 & older have been stalked in a way that made them fear for their safety. (http://ow.ly/3cXLw

• 1 to 2 women are murdered by a current or former partner each week in Canada. http://ow.ly/3cXDH

• Domestic violence—which is just one of many ways that violence against women is manifested—has a far more serious impact on women than men. Women are 2 times more likely to be injured than men, six times more likely to need medical attention than men, five times more likely to be hospitalised than men, and twice as likely to report ongoing assaults (ten or more) than men. http://ow.ly/3cYdK

• Yet women are reluctant to report the crimes against them. Only 36% of female victims of spousal violence and less than 10% of victims of sexual assault reported crimes to the police in 2004. Why? Because they are afraid of the offender, ashamed, and embarrassed. http://ow.ly/3cXDH

Get a grip and move on? Is that an appropriate response to these women? No, it is not. The National Day of Remembrance is a chance to raise awareness about the many women in Canada and around the world who continue to suffer from gender-based violence. It is one of the only times in a calendar year that we actually talk about violence against women, an issue that is too often swept under the rug. So let’s remember. And let’s act so that maybe, one day, we will be able to move on.

– Crystal Smith, Blog Editor, The Pixel Project

Courtesy and copyright of Jillian Edelstein (www.jillianedelstein.co.uk)

There are many reasons why Violence Against Women is possibly the most widespread and intractable human rights violations in human history: It is embedded in social structures; It is part of cultural customs; It is due to gender inequality; It is due to gender-based economic inequality; It is due to patriarchal strictures… the list of factors goes on and on and many have expounded on it.

Yet even while it is so entrenched an issue, many people have problems recognising gender-based violence even when they are come face-to-face with it simply because:

• It has become normalised or institutionalised as part of cultural practices; or
• It has become so taboo that it is glossed over as a non-issue or swept under a rug too controversial an issue to discuss; or
• It has become acceptable social or relationship behaviour.

Even if people do face up to gender-based violence as an issue, they might not realise the scale of the violence because, more often than not, they conflate violence against women with the particular type of gender-based violence that they are familiar with.  A typical example is how many people equate domestic violence with violence against women when domestic violence is actually a type of violence against women.

To effectively combat violence against women wherever it happens , we believe that people need to be aware of the full range of these human rights violations in its many forms so they can prevent, stop and end it in whatever guise it appears. While gender-based violence is undoubtedly a complicated issue, we all have to begin understanding the full extent of this worldwide atrocity.

In honour of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence, The Pixel Project presents a quick list of 16 major types of violence against women. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is a start. To learn about each type of violence in more detail, click on the hyperlinked terms.

Type 1: Domestic violence. Also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse or intimate partner violence. Broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by a partner in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, friends or cohabitation.Domestic violence takes many forms including physical aggression; sexual abuse including incest and marital rape; emotional abuse; controlling or domineering; intimidation; stalking; passive/covert abuse (e.g., neglect); and economic deprivation.

Type 2: Rape. Rape, in a nutshell, is any form of sexual intercourse without consent. It doesn’t have to involve penetration. As long as you say no, it’s rape. Even if you’re in a position where you can’t say no (like being unconscious, for example, or blackmailed), it’s rape.

Type 3: Rape as a Weapon of War. When part of a widespread and systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are recognized as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also recognised as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted ethnic group. Examples of rape as a weapon of war include the Rape of Nanking, the ongoing mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the mass rape of thousands of women during the Serb-Bosnian war.

Type 4: Sexual Assault. Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person and are most frequently by a man on a woman. While sexual assaults are associated with the crime of rape, it also covers assaults which would not be considered rape. Sexual assault may include rape, forced vaginal, anal or oral penetration, forced sexual intercourse, inappropriate touching, forced kissing,child sexual abuse, or the torture of the victim in a sexual manner.

Type 5: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/FGC). Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), refers to the cutting away of part or all of a girl’s external genitalia for cultural or non-medical reasons. Although a worldwide practice, it is most prevalent amongst certain African, Middle Eastern and Asian communities. FGM is most commonly performed on girls aged between four to 14—usually without their consent.

Type 6: Honour Killing. An honour killing (also called a customary killing) happens when a woman is murdered by a family member out of the belief or suspicion that the victim has brought shame to the family, clan or community. Murdering the person is believed to salvage the family’s honour.

Type 7: Forced Marriage. In a forced marriage, the bride is forced into a marriage against their will. They may be physically and/or emotionally threatened, usually by their families, or tricked into going abroad where they find themselves stranded without support or money, and with someone who demands their right of marriage.

Type 8: Human Trafficking. Human trafficking is what slavery, as a business, looks like in the 21st century. It describes the procurement of people against their will through force or deception, to be transported, sold and exploited for everything from forced prostitution to slave labour to human sacrifice. Trafficking victims are stripped of their basic human rights and treated as commodity.

Type 9: Bride Trafficking. In countries like Taiwan, China, South Korea and Japan, a phenomenon has emerged where men who have trouble finding wives resort to buying one from abroad. This has led to the growing business of bride trafficking. Immigrant spouses come from China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and North Korea. Trafficked brides face a number of risks including domestic violence and forced prostitution.

Type 10: Breast Ironing. Breast ironing is the pounding and massaging of a pubescent girl’s breasts using heated objects, in an attempt to make them stop developing or disappear. It is typically carried out by the girl’s mother in an attempt to protect the girl from sexual harassment and rape, to prevent early pregnancy that would tarnish the family name, or to allow the girl to pursue education rather than be forced into early marriage. It is mostly practiced in parts of Cameroon, where boys and men may think that girls whose breasts have begun to grow are ripe for sex.

Type 11: Foot Binding. Foot binding was a custom practiced on young girls and women for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the first half of 20th century. Binding the feet involved folding the toes back against the sole of the foot and breaking the arch of the foot to achieve impossibly tiny feet. Foot binding could lead to serious infections, possibly gangrene, and was generally painful for life. This is the only form of violence against women that has been successfully abolished.

Type 12: Stalking. Stalking can be defined as the willful and repeated following, watching, and/or harassing of someone, usually in order to force a relationship unto that person. Although stalking is illegal, stalking behaviours such as gathering information, calling, sending gifts, emailing or instant messaging are legal. Such actions can become abusive when frequently repeated over time. The rise of the Internet has led to cyberstalking—the use of technology to pursue, harass and stalk victims. Cyberstalkers target their victims through chat rooms, message boards, discussion forums, and email.

Type 13: Eve Teasing. Eve teasing is a euphemism used in India and sometimes Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal for public sexual harassment, street harassment or molestation of women by men, with Eve being a reference to the biblical Eve. it is a form of sexual aggression that ranges in severity from sexually suggestive remarks, brushing in public places, catcalls, to outright groping. Eve-teasing has been a notoriously difficult crime to prove, as perpetrators often devise ingenious ways to attack women.

Type 14: Street Harassment. 80% to 100% of women worldwide face at least occasional unwanted, harassing attention in public places from men they do not know just because they’re female. This harassment and an underlying fear of sexual assault causes women and girls to be in public less often than they would otherwise and to be on guard while there, especially when they are alone or it is night. Men’s harassment of women because of their gender is rarely seen as socially unacceptable. Instead it is portrayed as complimentary, “only” a trivial annoyance, a joke, or women’s fault based on their clothes.

Type 15: Prostitution. Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. Today, human trafficking is primarily for prostituting women and children. It is described as “the largest slave trade in history” and is the fastest growing form of contemporary slavery. It is also the fastest growing criminal industry, set to outgrow drug trafficking. Prostitutes often face violence including rape and murder.

Type 16: Stoning. is a form of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until the person dies. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject. Stoning is slower than other forms of execution, and hence is a form of execution by torture. The most high profile cases in recent years all involved women including Amina Lawal (Nigeria) and Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani (Iran).

– Regina Yau, Founder and President, The Pixel Project