Transforming Personal Pain Into Positive Action: The Pixel Project’s 16 Female Role Models 2016

Posted on November 25, 2016 by regina

Today is the first day of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2016 campaign and The Pixel Project is kicking things off with our 6th annual list of 16 female role models fighting to end violence against women in their communities. The intent of this list is simple: to highlight the good work of the heroines of the movement to end violence against women wherever they are in the world. The women and girls in this year’s list hail from 16 countries and 6 continents.

Many of these outstanding women and girls have shown that it is possible to transform personal pain that came out of facing gender-based violence into positive action to stop violence against women, empower themselves and to show other survivors that it is possible to move forward with dignity and happiness. They have refused to let bitterness and pain get the better of them, opting instead to stand up for themselves and for other women and girls.

Others on this list may not have experienced gender-based violence first hand, but they have stepped up to do what is right: to speak up for women and girls who cannot do it for themselves, sometimes at great personal risk. All this requires immense courage, generosity of spirit and a strong enduring heart.

Here in alphabetical order by first name is our 2016 list of 16 female role models. We hope that these women are an inspiration to others to get involved in the cause. To that end, we hope you will generously share this list via Facebook and Twitter to give these extraordinary 16 women and their work a moment in the sun.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

Note: Information for all role model profiles is sourced via online research and is based on one or more news sources, articles and/or The Pixel Project’s own interviews with them. The main articles/reports from which these profiles have been sourced can be directly accessed via the hyperlinked titles. Please do click through to learn more about these remarkable women.

Written and compiled by Regina Yau

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Female Role Model 1: Balkissa Chaibou – Niger

Balkissa Chaibou wanted to become a doctor, but when she was 12 she found out that she had been promised as a bride to her cousin. She fought to get out of the pending marriage by taking her family to court and seeking refuge at a women’s shelter until the bridegroom’s party left. Balkissa is now 19 and she campaigns for other girls to say “no” to forced marriage. She visits schools, speaks to tribal chiefs about the issue, and has also spoken at a UN summit on reducing maternal mortality, which is a health issue linked to early marriage.

Female Role Model 2: Bogaletch Gebre – Ethiopia

Bogaletch Gebre is a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) who was born in Kembatta, a region in Ethiopia where FGM was endemic and women were largely uneducated. She learned to read by visiting the church school under the pretext of collecting water and eventually received a scholarship to study in the U.S and Israel. She returned to Ethiopia to help better the lives of women and girls and has spent 16 years campaigning for women’s rights in Ethiopia. Through her relentless activism, Gebre has successfully reduced the rate of FGM in some parts of the country from 97% to just 3%.

Female Role Model 3: Clementine Ford – Australia

Melbourne-based Clementine Ford is an Australian feminist and author who has has written and spoken up fiercely and consistently about male violence against women, first in Adelaide’s Sunday Mail and opinion pieces in the Drum, then in the Fairfax website Daily Life. Her book Fight Like A Girl is part memoir and part polemic – detailing her development as a feminist and addressing the issue of violence against women head on. Ford is seen as a feminist who led “feminism back into the boxing ring” as she fights back against silencing and harassment online by naming and shaming men who verbally attack or threaten her, often replying to them publicly.

Female Role Model 4: Fatou Bensouda – Gambia

As a high school student, Fatou Bensouda would sneak into nearby courts to watch the proceedings and she noticed that women in particular were not “receiving the protective embrace of the law. For me that is one of the things that informed my decision to say, ‘This is what I want to do.’” Today, Bensouda is the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) in the Hague where she works to mete out justice to war criminals and genocidal despots. Her own position as a woman from West Africa has also informed the character of Bensouda’s ICC – she has made it an explicit goal of the court to challenge the rape and exploitation of women and children in war.

Female Role Model 5: Frida Farrell – Sweden

When she was in her early twenties, Swedish actress Frida Farrell was tricked into attending a fake photoshoot, kidnapped, drugged and sexually trafficked to men in an apartment on London’s upmarket Harley Street. Over a decade after she escaped her abusers, Farrell co-wrote the film Selling Isobel which was based on her harrowing experiences in the hope that her story will stop other women getting into the same situation. She said: “I wanted people watching to know that it could happen to any girl,” Frida explains. “You don’t have to be foreign, poor or not speak the language. People think these kinds of things just happen to poor immigrants, but it could happen to English girls too.”

Female Role Model 6: Jacqueline de Chollet – Switzerland

Over the past 30 years Jacqueline de Chollet has been active in the fields of Women’s Health, Social Justice, Education, Public Housing, and the Arts. She created the The Global Foundation for Humanity U.S. and the Association du Project Veerni to support the Veerni Project – a project that tackles the issue of child marriage in Rajasthan, India by improving the health and education girls and women in the region. de Chollet said: “We believe that by giving these girls access to education, health and the workplace, Veerni can empower them to take their rightful place in the lives of their communities and their country. Only then will they be able to exercise their human rights and live free from coercion disease and poverty.”

Female Role Model 7: Laura Dunn – United States of America

Laura Dunn is the Founder and Executive Director of SurvJustice, a national nonprofit providing legal assistance to sexual violence survivors across the U.S. She founded SurvJustice after being raped by two men from her crew team at the University of Wisconsin in April 2004. She said: “Afterwards, I struggled for years through campus, criminal and civil systems without receiving justice. Through this tragic experience, I learned about the laws and how to advocate for survivors.” In 2014, Dunn graduated the University of Maryland Carey School of Law where she received the William P. Cunningham Award for her national campus sexual assault advocacy, which includes passing the 2013 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Reauthorization and advising the White House Task Force to Protect Students Against Sexual Assault.

Female Role Model 8: Loubna Abida – Morocco

Moroccan actress Loubna Abidar was vilified and assaulted for playing a local prostitute in the award-winning film Much Loved, ultimately sending her into exile as a refugee in France. However, she refuses to be silenced by fatwas, online death threats and violence. In her autobiography La Dangereuse, Abidar frankly discusses how she went from overcoming poverty, exclusion and physical and sexual attacks by her father to becoming one of North Africa’s the most acclaimed young actresses and feminist voices in recent years. In an interview with Women Of The World, Abidar said: “In the Arab world generally we have this problem of rapes committed by people known to the victims — by relatives, fathers, uncles. I don’t only talk about my own story, I have done a lot of work with activist associations, especially with little girls living in the mountains.”

Female Role Model 9: Nadia Murad Basee Tahar – Iraq

On August 3, 2014, when ISIS militants attacked Nadia Murad Basee Tahar’s village of Kocho, Iraq. Six of her nine brothers were killed. Murad (then 19 years old) and her two sisters were forced into sexual slavery while their mother was executed as she was considered too old to be a sex slave. Murad was raped, tortured, and beaten frequently until she escaped and made her way to Germany where she began devoting her life to assisting other Yazidi women and girls who have suffered as she did. Murad is now a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. In September 2016, Murad announced Nadia’s Initiative which is dedicated to helping women and children victimised by genocide and crimes against humanity.

Female Role Model 10: Omaima Hoshan – Syria

15-year-old Omaima Hoshan, a Syrian refugee, runs workshops to discourage child marriage in Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp. “When I see young girls getting married, it scares me,” Hoshan says in a video from the United Nations refugee agency. “Girls from my home have their future lost or destroyed. This is something I can’t accept.” Hoshan leads girls in drawing, acting and lecture sessions, spreading information about underage marriage and encouraging girls to stay in school and to speak to their parents about the issue, according to Mashable.

Female Role Model 11: Rachana Sunar – Nepal

When Rachana Sunar was 15 and still in school through a scholarship programme, she was informed by her parents she would marry a man she had never met before. Sunar escaped child marriage by misleading her parents into thinking that if she dropped out of school they’d have to pay for the past three years of her scholarship. Today, Sunar is a very vocal campaigner against child marriage in Nepal and says that dialogue is the only way to change entrenched attitudes to girls in rural Nepal.

Female Role Model 12: Radha Rani Sakher – Bangladesh

When Radha Sani Sakher was 14, she narrowly escaped an arranged marriage with the help of an educated cousin and her mother. Sakher returned to school with the help of her teachers and an aid group. Today she studies social sciences at Dinajpur’s regional university and is part of the “wedding busters” who campaign to stop child marriage. To date, she has saved 20 girls from forced marriages. Sakher’s goal is to build a centre for girls to find refuge from underage marriages until they are legally adults because “The situation has improved a little in recent years, but underage marriage still enjoys impunity.”

Female Role Model 13: Sarian Karim Kamara – Sierra Leone

Sarian Karim Kamara underwent the brutal ritual of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) twice when she was just 11 years old. It took Kamara four years after becoming sexually active to get to know her body and experience her first orgasm. Today, she teaches other FGM survivors how to work with their bodies to experience sexual gratification and have a healthy sex life. Kamara said that an openness to explore one’s body in the wake of devastating physical trauma and a supportive sex partner are essential for FGM survivors to achieve sexual pleasure. “Even though the clitoris has been removed, that doesn’t stop us from having full capacity of pleasure during sex.”

Female Role Model 14: Tabassum Adnan – Pakistan

Pakistani activist Tabassum Adnan was married off when she was just 13-years-old. After suffering 20 years of physical and mental abuse, Adnan divorced her husband, which resulted in the loss of her children, home, and finances. To help stop gender-based violence that commonly affect Pakistani women including forced marriage, child marriage, honour killings, acid attacks and domestic violence, she started the NGO Khwendo Jirga, a first of its kind women-only jirga, where women meet weekly to discuss violence against women and swara, or giving women as compensation for crimes.

Female Role Model 15: Vidya Bal – India

Veteran Indian feminist activist Vidya Bal has spent her life fighting against violence against women and other forms of gender discrimination. In 1982, she founded the Nari Samata Manch (Women Equality Forum) and has gone on to create, support, and counsel women’s groups. Bal said of her organisation’s work: “We want to create awareness that it is about being a good human being—and not about being a “feminine woman” or a “manly man.” Only then, we can aspire for an equitable society. This is a small experiment. I am hoping to make a small difference. Often I meet young boys telling me that after listening to my lectures their perspective of girls changed! Maybe that’s just a temporary thing—but still a good thing.”

Female Role Model 16: Zahra Yaganah – Afghanistan

Zahra Yaganah grew up as an Afghan refugee in Iran and, at 13, was married off to a violent man. Today, her book Light Of Ashes – part fiction, part memoir – which chronicles her traumatic life as a child bride is one of the fastest-selling books in Afghanistan. Using her writing to speak out, Yaganah breaks taboos by explicitly writing about taboo topics including marital rape, menstruation and the lifelong damage caused by child marriages. Yaganah hopes that her book will help Afghan women break free of the violence. “It is impossible for Afghan women to read this book and not find an issue that reflects their life story,” she said. “Women can find their path, despite all the problems they have.”

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Photo Credits:

Balkissa Chaibou – From “The girl who said ‘no’ to marriage” (BBC News Online)
Bogaletch Gebre – From “How Bogaletch Gebre is Bringing an End to Female Genital Mutilation in Ethiopia” (KMG via ibtimes.co.uk)
Clementine Ford – From “This is why we have women-only spaces, and why I don’t want to hear your complaints” (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Fatou Bensouda – From “Fatou Bensouda, the woman who hunts tyrants” (Judith Jockel/The Guardian)
Frida Farrell – From “The Sex Trafficking Victim Who Turned Her Nightmare Into A Feature Film (Huckmagazine.com)
Jacqueline de Chollet – Courtesy of Jacqueline de Chollet
Laura Dunn – Courtesy of Laura Dunn
Loubna Abida – From “Actress Loubna Abidar refuses to be silenced by fatwas, death threats or violence” (Pierre Terdjman/New York Times)
Nadia Murad Basee Tahah – From “A Yezidi Woman Who Escaped ISIS Slavery Tells Her Story” (Kirsten Luce/Time)
Omaima Hoshan – From “This 15-Year-Old Syrian Girl Is Campaigning Against Child Marriage in Her Refugee Camp” (Makers.com)
Rachana Sunar – From “Child marriage in Nepal: ‘A girl is a girl, not a wife’ (Rachana Sunar/The Guardian)
Radha Rani Sakher – From “Bangladesh’s ‘Wedding buster’ takes on illegal child marriage” (Bas Bogaerts/Plan International)
Sarian Karim Kamara – From “Decades after undergoing genital cutting, woman teaches other FGM survivors how to enjoy sex” (Women Of The World/New York Times)
Tabassum Adnan – From “Pakistani activist wins Nelson Mandela award 2016” (Tabassum Adnan/The Express Tribune)
Vidya Bal – From “Meet the Feminist Fighting India’s Entrenched Misogyny” (Frances Smith/Vice)
Zahra Yaganah – From “The former child bride who is using her story to liberate Afghan women” (Andrew Quilty/The Guardian)

16 Powerful Public Service Announcements Saying NO To Violence Against Women

Posted on December 9, 2015 by regina

For decades, Public Service Announcements (PSAs) have been used by government agencies, charities/nonprofits, and advocacy groups to encourage people to raise awareness about a number of social issues like drugs, alcohol abuse, education, etc. PSAs went from strength to strength as the variety of media channels advanced from print and radio ads in the early days to the invention of television.

Today, with a significant chunk of the world connected – and connecting – through the internet, PSAs have now taken on a completely new role. PSAs, along with the social media phenomenon of ‘viral videos’, have been breaking new ground in all fields, especially when it comes to raising awareness and educating the public about violence against women (VAW). With YouTube being the second most popular and second largest search engine in the world after Google, video-based social media communities have become a vibrant breeding ground for more and more creative expressions to encourage the conversation around VAW.

This year, as a part of The Pixel Project’s ’16 for 16’ campaign, we have selected 16 of the most innovative PSAs addressing various facets of VAW from across the world. While they may be produced in different areas of the globe, these videos have universal appeal and have reached out to millions of people across country or continental boundaries.

Here is our list – we hope it helps spark much-needed conversation about VAW in your families and communities.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

Written and compiled by Rubina Singh. Additional PSA selections by Regina Yau.

Call To Action: Help us reach the $25,000 fundraising milestone for our Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign this holiday season by giving generously to our “16 For 16” fundraiser (which also includes #GivingTuesday)! Find out more and donate to get awesome book and music goodies at http://is.gd/16DaysGT2015

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PSA Selection #1: End Violence Against Women Arab Region PSA – UN Women, Global

[TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains footage that may be disturbing for VAW survivors] This video is part of a series of three PSAs by UN women addressing VAW in the Arab region. This particular video addresses the issue of VAW in conflict zones and has been produced in English, French and Arabic. The other two videos can be viewed here and here:

PSA Selection #2: Ending Violence against Women – Bangkok Mass Transit Authority and UN Women’s Regional Office for Asia, Thailand

Produced by the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority in collaboration with UN Women, this PSA showcases the extent of VAW around the world and urges commuters to support the local “Love Without Violence” campaign. The video was broadcast on public buses in Bangkok to encourage people to speak up and report cases of VAW.

PSA Selection #3: How To Be More Than A Bystander – The Ending Violence Association of BC, Canada

This PSA, which shows viewers how to take action to stop the harassment of women, is part of a series of PSAs developed by the Ending Violence Association of British Columbia, Canada. The videos were shown during major sporting events in British Columbia. The entire series can be viewed on YouTube here.

PSA Selection #4: “Isn’t It Time Someone Called CUT!” – Women’s Aid, United Kingdom

[TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains scenes that may be distressing for domestic violence survivors] This PSA by Women’s Aid UK features movie star Keira Knightley being abused by her partner and eventually pans back to that the scene is happening at a film set, but the only people there are Keira and her partner. When this PSA by Women’s Aid UK made its debut on cinema screens as part of the preview run before the movies begun as well as on YouTube, it created an uproar and sparked plenty of conversation due to its explicit depiction of domestic violence.

PSA Selection #5: It’s Your Fault – All India Bakchod, India

This PSA by a group of comedians in India called the All India Bakchod (AIB) talks about a number of common commentaries that survivors of VAW are subjected to, not just in India but across the world. As a sarcastic take on victim blaming, it definitely drives the point home.

PSA Selection #6: ‘Le Film Choc’ – Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes (FNSF), France

[TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains scenes of sexual assault and domestic violence that may be distressing to some survivors] Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes, a women’s rights coalition in France which campaigns to end domestic violence through awareness and education (including training employers healthcare professionals, social workers, psychologists and other professionals likely to come in contact with abused women), made this stark video showing domestic abuse and sexual assault in a number of different contexts, including in same-sex relationships.

PSA Selection #7: ‘Let’s End Violence Against Women’ – UN Women, Global

London-based advertising agency Leo Burnett produced this public service announcement (PSA) for UN Women. The video uses a series of striking images to show how violence against women is one of the most common forms of violence in the world.

PSA Selection #8: ‘Monsters in the Closet’ – Domestic Violence from a child’s view’ – the Verizon Foundation and National Domestic Violence Hotline, USA

This powerful animated PSA talks about how domestic violence impacts women and children. Narrated by a child, the video depicts the cycle of violence and the drastic effects of witnessing domestic violence as a child.

PSA Selection #9:‘Slap Her’ – Fanpage.it, Italy

This controversial viral video shows how young boys react to VAW. The boys are asked to slap a young girl in front of them and every single one of them refused to do so, stating that abusing a girl is wrong.

PSA Selection #10: ‘Stairs’ – Bundesverband Frauenberatungsstellen und Frauennotrufe (BFF), Germany

[TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains scenes that may be disturbing to survivors of domestic violence] Made by BFF, a coalition of more than 160 women’s counselling centres and rape crisis centres in Germany, this video shows women ‘falling down stairs’, an excuse commonly used by domestic violence victims when asked about their bruises and injuries by people outside the family or marriage. The video urges the people to pay attention and to take action to help stop the violence.

PSA Selection #11: Teenage Rape Prevention Advert – The UK Home Office, United Kingdom

[TRIGGER WARNING: This video contains scenes that may be disturbing to survivors of rape and sexual assault] According to the UK’s Home Office, Research shows that many young people suffer from rape and serious sexual assault in their relationships. So the Home Office made this video to target teenagers to help them understand rape and sexual assault in the context of their relationships, and does so by highlighting the importance of consent in sexual relationships.

PSA Selection #12: The”Bell Bajao” series – Breakthrough India, India

These PSAs are part of a series of videos which highlights the creative ways that men and boys who are bystanders can take to intervene in situations of domestic abuse. ‘Bell Bajao’ or ‘Ring the Bell’ encourages viewers to intervene in a safe way to let the abuser know that their behavior is unacceptable. Check out the rest of the “Bell Bajao” series via this YouTube playlist.

PSA Selection #13: The Johannesburg Drums Experiment – POWA, South Africa

Check out this very creative PSA by POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse) which shows how neighbours typically intervene in any situation in their neighbourhood other than domestic violence situations. The silence is deafening.

PSA Selection #14: The NO MORE campaign’s “Speechless” PSA series – The Joyful Heart Foundation, USA

This video is part of a series of PSAs by the No More campaign by actress Mariska Hargitay’s Joyful Heart Foundation.It features the Law & Order: SVU cast and a number of celebrities urging people to start a conversation about VAW and to take action to stop it in their homes and communities. Check out the rest of the series via this YouTube playlist.

PSA Selection #15: ‘Who Are You’ – The ‘Who Are You’ Coalition, New Zealand

[TRIGGER WARNING: The video contains scenes that may be disturbing for survivors of rape and sexual assault] ‘Who Are You?’ is a free toolkit that uses group exercises and a short film to educate young people about the prevention of sexual violence and ethical sexual decision making. This powerful video is a little longer than the standard anti-VAW PSA, aiming to thoroughly address the important role that bystanders play in the prevention of sexual assault and rape.

PSA Selection #16: ‘Who Will You Help’ – Ontario Government, Canada

This video from the Ontario government shows a series of scenarios where being an active bystander can prevent VAW. It encourages viewers to take action in situations of violence and harassment.

16 Activists and Organisations Working Online To Stop Violence Against Women

Posted on December 8, 2015 by regina

With the 21^st century in full swing, the internet has become an integral part of everyday life for much for the world. From shopping to social lives, we have become increasingly reliant on the internet to get things done, as well as to communicate with other people. The younger generations, starting with Millenials, have never grown up in a world without the internet. With the increasing affordability and ubiquity of portable technology such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets, even the most remote of locations are getting online and getting connected. Indeed, the UN has even declared internet access a universal human right.

The internet, however, is a double-edged sword. While it has helped everything from business to education take massive leaps forward faster than ever, online communication platforms and communities such as blogs, social media networks, chatrooms, and forums have also helped amplify some of the worst aspects of humanity including misogyny and Violence Against Women (VAW). According to UN Women, “cyber VAWG already exists in many forms, including online harassment, public shaming, the desire to inflict physical harm, sexual assaults, murders and induced suicides”.

The anti-VAW movement has taken on the cyber VAW fight in two major ways. They use social media and other online platforms to educate, raise awareness, raise funds, and to turbo charge the fight against VAW and sexism. Crucially, anti-VAW activists are also finding ways to effectively tackle the tidal wave of cyber-VAW using tactics ranging from rallying individuals and organisations to unite against VAW to pushing social media companies to become more accountable for taking action to stamp out VAW in their communities.

The 16 activists and organisations listed below have been at the frontline of digital anti-VAW activism in the last decade as social media started its unstoppable rise to prominence. From providing an anonymous blog platform for survivors to tell their stories to creating viral educational videos to working with Facebook and Twitter to stop VAW on their watch, each of them have stepped up to take on this new frontier in the fight to end VAW. We hope their work inspires you to do so too.

Written and compiled by Samantha Carroll and Regina Yau. Introduction by Regina Yau.

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Recommendation #1: Aimee Smith

Aimee Smith is the pseudonym of a blogger who shares her story of rape survival. On her blog One Woman, Smith inspires women to come forward (anonymously if preferred) and share their stories of survival too. “If we can help even one woman deal with her pain, we will be succeeding”, says Smith. When she’s not helping others, Smith is teaching, parenting, playing the piano and being nominated for the One Lovely Blog Award.

Recommendation #2: Anita Sarkeesian

Anita Sarkeesian is the pop-culture media critic who made headlines when she launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to support her production of a video Web series called Tropes vs Women in Video Games, which explores female stereotypes in the gaming industry. Her feminist critique of the gaming industry has garnered an ongoing vitriolic online backlash, including threats of death, sexual assault and rape, most recently escalating to hounding her out of her home and forcing her to cancel an event at Utah State University due to the threat of a mass gun massacre.

Recommendation #3: Breakthrough

Breakthrough is a global human rights organisation based in both the U.S. and India. They work to make violence and discrimination against women and girls unacceptable via cutting-edge multimedia campaigns, community mobilisation, agenda setting, and leadership training equip men and women worldwide to challenge the status quo and take action to address and end violence against women and girls. Online campaigning is one of their key strengths – one of their best known online campaigns is their “Bell Bajao” campaign featuring YouTube videos that encourage the viewer to take action to stop domestic violence by ringing the bell. “Bell Bajao” has been adapted by domestic violence organisations in other countries including China and Vietnam.

Recommendation #4: Caroline Criado-Perez

Caroline Criado-Perez is a freelance journalist and feminist campaigner who successfully campaigned to persuade the Bank of England to include a prominent woman (Jane Austen) among an otherwise all-male group of British luminaries on the back of British currency. The success of the campaign made her and other women the target of numerous threats of rape and murder on Twitter from the day of the Bank of England’s announcement in July 2013. She fought back against the abuse publicly, which resulted in Twitter’s general manager in Britain, Tony Wang, announcing a one-click option on all posts enabling users to easily report abusive tweets, where previously there was no recourse for victims of online harassment on Twitter.

Recommendation #5: Jessica Valenti

Jessica Valenti is the founder of Feministing.com and the author of four books on feminism, politics and culture, and. Her newest book, Sex Object, will be out in 2016. She is also a daily columnist and staff writer for Guardian US where she writes about violence against women and gender inequality. The Guardian has named her as one of their “top 100 women” for her work to bring the feminist movement online. Her work has also appeared in Ms.,The Nation, The Washington Post, TPMCafe, and Alternet.

Recommendation #6: June Eric-Udorie

June Eric-Udorie is a 16 year old campaigner against female genital mutilation, writer, and member of Plan UK’s Youth Advisory Panel where she sits on the Board of Trustees. She advocates for women’s rights and is passionate about ending violence against women and girls. Udorie protests (both online and offline) against victim blaming, supports the empowerment of girls, blogs for New Statesman, and has written for Girls’ Globe and the Telegraph. In April 2015, Udorie petitioned against Sussex Police after they produced objectionable anti-rape posters. The posters were taken down within 72 hours. She was nominated for the Red Women of the Year Award 2015.

Recommendation #7: Meltem Avcil

In 2007, at the age of 13, Meltem Avcil was placed in the Yarl’s Wood immigration centre, Bedfordshire, UK, with her mother. There she witnessed women (like her mother) who had fled their home countries due to VAW, and were placed in a prison-like space. In a Cosmo article, Avcil is quoted as saying that, “These women have experienced torture, rape, violence, sexual abuse. They have been tortured mentally and physically. So when they come to this country to seek refuge, they’re being tortured again by being put in prison.” As a result of her experience, Avcil has started a change.org petition and called on the UK’s on Home Secretary Theresa May, to end the incarceration of abused women seeking asylum.

Recommendation #8: Nuala Cabral

Nuala Cabral created a short film in 2009 called Walking Home, to address street harassment. The film was uploaded to YouTube and was watched by tens of thousands. After Walking Home went viral, the film won the Speaking Out Award at the non-profit Media That Matters Film Festival. Cabral is a cofounder of FAAN (Fostering Activism and Alternatives Now), a media literacy and activism project that focuses on transforming the way women of colour are depicted in the media. To achieve this and as part of their community engagement, FAAN offers and facilitates a range of workshops, presentations and professional development around media literacy, social media activism and creating media for social change.

Recommendation #9: Raquel Evita Saraswati

Raquel Evita Saraswati is the first woman under the age of 30 to receive a Durga Award for dedication to ending gender-based violence, FGM and forced and child marriages. Saraswati has spoken out publically against honour killings all over the world and has written for prestigious media outlets while campaigning vigorously online via her blog and Twitter where she has over 20,000 followers. Her new initiative is called Adalah: Ending Gender-Based Violence and will focus on “a holistic approach to ending gender-based violence”.

Recommendation #10: Soraya Chemaly

Soraya Chemaly is a feminist media critic and activist whose work focuses on women’s rights, freedom of speech, and the role of gender and violence in politics, religion and pop culture. She is a contributor to Salon, CNN, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and Time and her work is also regularly published in gender-focused media. In May 2013, she teamed up with Women, Action, and The Media (WAM!) to organise a successful global social media campaign demanding that Facebook recognise misogynistic content as hate speech. She works regularly with social media companies to address gender-based inequalities.

Recommendation #11: Stop Street Harassment

Stop Street Harassment (SSH) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment worldwide. It started as a blog in 2008 by founder Holly Kearl and quickly went from strength to strength over the last 7 years as Kearl built a fast-growing community to push back against street harassment. Today, SSH runs the highly successful International Anti-Street Harassment Week every Spring, using social media, their website resources, and their mailing list to organise groups and tens of thousands of people around the world to take action against street harassment in their community. SSH also continues to collect and document stories of street harassment submitted by women and girls worldwide.

Recommendation #12: Take Back The Tech

Take Back The Tech! was initiated in 2006 by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Women’s Rights Programme and was created as a call to everyone, especially women and girls, to take control of technology to end violence against women. It’s a global, collaborative campaign project that highlights the problem of tech-related violence against women such as cyberstalking, together with research and solutions from different parts of the world. The campaign offers safety roadmaps and information and provides an avenue for taking action. The collective runs several campaigns every year, and their biggest annual campaign takes place during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (25 Nov – 10 Dec).

Recommendation #13: The Pixel Project

The Pixel Project is a global virtual non-profit working to raise awareness, funds, and volunteer power for the cause to end violence against women (VAW) worldwide. They focus on online campaigns which combine social media, new technologies, pop culture, and the arts. Their campaigns span a range of online tools and social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Hangouts, YouTube, and blogs, tailoring these online platforms to reach, involve, and mobilise a wide range of social demographics for the cause including VAW survivors, fathers, music artistes, authors, geeks and book lovers, pet lovers, and foodies. Their flagship campaign is the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign – a crowdfunding campaign which aims to get donors worldwide to reveal a million-pixel collage of 4 celebrity male role models by donating a dollar a pixel.

Recommendention #14: UN Women

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), is a United Nations entity working for the empowerment of women. One of their key focal issues is violence against women (VAW) and in the last decade, they have successfully leveraged the power of the internet and social media to rally the global community to take action to stop VAW. In 2009, they launched the SayNO – UNiTE to end Violence Against Women campaign which aimed to raise at least 1 million actions to stop VAW (and succeeded). In 2014, they launched the #HeForShe campaign with Harry Potter star Emma Watson as the ambassador to get men and boys to step up to end sexism, misogyny, and VAW.

Recommendation #15: Women, Action, and The Media (WAM!)

WAM! states that they are a “nonprofit dedicated to building a robust, effective, inclusive movement for gender justice in media”. Founded by feminist activist Jaclyn Friedman, WAM! runs a variety of campaigns that aims to change the way online and traditional media treat and portray women and girls. WAM! has broken new ground with getting social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter to become more pro-active in addressing online harassment and misogyny that take place on their sites. In November 2014, WAM! collaborated with Twitter to address the online harassment of female Twitter users. In May 2013, WAM! took on Facebook with an open letter signed by more than 100 anti-Violence Against Women organisations demanding that Facebook recognize misogynistic content as hate speech. They won.

Recommendation #16: Yas Necati

Yas Necati is an 18 year old activist who describes herself as a “full-time patriarchy-smasher”. In 2013, she launched a campaign called #BetterSexEducation due to the UK’s Sex and Relationships Education out-dated curriculum. Nescati helps run the Campaign4Consent, which aims to make consent and information about sexual assault part of the UK’s Sex and Relationships Education curriculum. She is managing editor of Powered By Girl and a member of No More Page 3. And if all of the above isn’t enough, Necati is also writing a book on feminism for teens.

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Photo credits:

Aimee Smith – Blog headline from https://onewoman365.wordpress.com/
Anita Sarkeesian – Photo from Wikipedia
Breakthrough – Logo courtesy of Breakthrough
Caroline Criado-Perez – Photo from The Guardian
Jennifer Baumgardner – Photo from : http://www.jenniferbaumgardner.net/
Jessica Valenti – Photo from Wikipedia (taken on March 12th 2014 at Roanoke College‘s 8th Annual Women’s Forum)
June Eric-Udorie – Photo from http://june-writes.com/about/
Nuala Cabral – Photo from http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/about/board-of-directors/past-board-members/
Raquel Eva Saraswati – Photo from http://www.raquelevita.com/
Soraya Chemaly – Photo from Facebook/Soraya Chemaly
Stop Street Harassment – Logo courtesy of Stop Street Harassment
Take Back The Tech – Logo from www.takebackthetech.org
The Pixel Project – Logo courtesy of The Pixel Project
UN Women – Logo from www.unwomen.org
Women, Action, and The Media (WAM!) – Logo from http://www.womenactionmedia.org/
Yas Necati – Photo from http://www.yasnecati.com/

The Pixel Project Selection 2015: 16 films about violence against women

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Catalina Rembuyan

In this day and age, film is a particularly effective medium for teaching and learning. This is why, for the past four years, The Pixel Project has been publishing lists of powerful films, documentaries and television shows that seek to inform and educate the public about the worldwide scourge of violence against women, its various forms, and what everyone can do to stop and prevent it.

In recent years, mainstream film has been slowly moving away from traditional sexist portrayals of women and VAW, both following and informing a trend in popular culture to be more respectful and aware of women’s rights. This year’s Mad Max: Fury Road, a blockbuster action film starring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, is a shining example of a film that used no gender stereotypes and that ignited lots of discussion on gender roles and portrayals. This is certainly a big step in the direction of gender equality but there is still, of course, much more to be achieved.

This year’s list of films and documentaries portray women and girls from diverse backgrounds who all have one thing in common – they are victims and survivors of violence against women. Though many of them may be difficult to watch because they deal with harrowing subjects in an explicit manner, it is important to watch them because they are portrayals of the truth. We hope that they will inspire you to join us in our quest to end violence against women and to be a catalyst of change in your own community.

Written and compiled by Anushia Kandasivam. Additional selections by Catalina Rembuyan and Regina Yau.

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Selection Number 1: A Daughter’s Debt

One of the first films to explore women’s issues among the Hmong people, A Daughter’s Debt follows three generations of Hmong-American women as they talk about cultural practices that include bride purchase, polygamy and marriage by capture, and how these practices affect them in their community in the United States. The film was screened at the recent Cannes Film Festival as part of the Short Film Catalogue.

https://youtu.be/CTcho5W72AQ

Selection Number 2: A Handful of Ash

For almost a decade, reporters Nabez Ahmad and Shara Amin shed light into one of the most taboo topics in Kurdish society: female genital mutilation. They took their documentary, A Handful of Ash, which was produced in 2003, to the Kurdish Parliament, allying with a German-Iraqi non-governmental organisation, Wadi. At first, no one paid attention except for a few female politicians. But the film and the campaign was the start of a movement. Three years later, Human Rights Watch released a report on female genital mutilation in Kurdistan. In 2011, female circumcision was outlawed across Iraqi Kurdistan. In 2013, two years after the campaign’s success, The Guardian released a 17-minute condensed version of A Handful of Ash, viewable of their website.

Selection Number 3: After the Rape: The Mukhtar Mai Story

[Trigger warning: This video contains descriptions of rape] Mukhtar Mai is a Pakistani woman from a rural village who was gang-raped on the orders of a local tribal clan as a form of honour revenge in 2002. Mukhtar defied custom to speak up and report the rapes to the authorities. Mukhtar’s bravery and quest for justice ignited a series of events that has led to more awareness of women’s rights in rural Pakistan. Realising that education holds the key to changing society’s mentality, Mukhtar opened two schools for girls in her village as well as a crisis centre for abused women. The documentary follows the progress of the school and tracks the profound impact that education and access to the crisis centre has empowered women and girls in this rural part of Pakistan.

Selection Number 4: Daughters of Mother India

In 2012, a young woman was violently gang-raped and murdered in New Delhi. The incident sparked widespread outrage, generating discussion and criticism of India’s long history of gender violence and inequality, precipitating public protests against the state and central governments for what was seen as continued failure to provide security for women in India. Daughters of Mother India documents the response of Indian policy makers and activists to the epidemic of sexual violence in the country. The film has received strong commendations and high praise from viewers both within India and beyond.

Selection Number 5: Forced

Calgary filmmaker Iman Bukhari wanted to bring to light the fact that forced marriages happen in a first-world nation such as Canada. Her documentary sheds light on the continuing cycle of forced marriages in families and though the film does emphasise that these marriages can happen to any gender, it follows the story of a female victim and features interviews with a mother who forced her daughter into marriage. Bukhari has stated that her intention for Forced is to open a dialogue about forced marriages with the aim of bringing the issue out into the open and helping to end the cycle.

Selection Number 6: GTFO

This documentary is about the pervasive misogyny and abuse of women in the gaming world. It documents not just gamers but also female game designers, developers, programmers and others in the gaming industry who consistently receive abuse for being the ‘wrong’ gender in what is still a boys’ club, as well as the abuse and intimidation of women who speak out against it. Documentary maker Shannon Sun-Higginson was inspired to make the film after watching a clip from a major gaming competition in which a player repeatedly sexually harassed his teammate.

Selection Number 7: Hey…Shorty

Inspired by the now iconic 1998 documentary on street harassment War Zone, this short documentary was created and produced by five interns at Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), an organisation in Brooklyn, New York, committed to the physical, psychological, social, and economic development of girls and women. The filmmakers, who ranged from 15 to 18 years old, spent eight months interviewing young women of colour in their neighbourhood about the impact of street harassment on their life. The documentary also features interviews with several men of colour, both young and old, about their intentions behind the behaviour, and examines the root causes of the phenomenon of the harassment of women in public spaces.

Selection Number 8: It Happened Here

[Trigger warning: description of rape and examples of rape threats] This documentary is about the pervasive and seemingly unstoppable phenomenon of sexual assault on the campuses of American colleges and the apathy and dismissive behaviour of the authorities involved. The film contains personal testimonials of five survivors and reveals their struggles to get justice and the blame they face from those who should be on their side. It also serves as a mouthpiece for these women and others who are speaking out against the institutionalised cover-ups of campus sexual assaults.

Selection Number 9: Out in the Night

This documentary asks the question: Do women have a right to defend themselves against street harassment? The film follows the story of four young African-American lesbian women who were walking through a New York neighbourhood one night in 2006 when they were confronted, harassed and assaulted by an older man. When the man became violent, the four friends fought back to defend themselves. When the police arrived at the scene, the women were arrested. They were subsequently charged with gang assault, assault and attempted murder. The film follows the lives of the women and explores how race, gender, gender identity and sexuality plays a part in violence perpetrated on strangers, especially women. It also discusses how these factors were sensationalised and criminalised by mainstream news media.

Selection Number 10: Provoked

This 2006 film starring Bollywood leading lady Aishwarya Rai tells the story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, an Indian woman in an arranged marriage who moves to the UK with her husband, and who later kills him after enduring years of abuse. The film follows her trial, incarceration and subsequent appeal in court. In real life, Ahluwalia’s appeal became a landmark case in British law and is still used as precedent today; it changed the legal definition of the word ‘provocation’ in cases of domestic violence so as to reclassify her crime to manslaughter instead of murder. Ahluwalia’s case also created awareness of domestic violence amongst immigrant families in the UK.

Selection Number 11: Rape on the Night Shift

[Trigger warning: Survivor accounts in this video include vivid descriptions of sexual assault.] This documentary, a collaboration between PBS Frontline and The Center for Investigative Reporting at the University of California Berkley, tackles an issue that probably has never been explored in film before: the sexual abuse of immigrant women in the janitorial industry in the United States. The assaults are perpetrated by co-workers, managers, building supervisors or security guards. The film features firsthand accounts from survivors and explores and reveals the dangers and difficulties confronted by these women working in low-paying jobs in deserted buildings at night.

Selection Number 12: Searching for Angela Shelton

In this award-winning documentary, filmmaker Angela Shelton drives around the United States looking for and surveying other women named Angela Shelton. Shelton’s search for other Angela Sheltons started as a simple effort to locate as many women with the same name across the United States as she could. When speaking with the women, she found that about 70% of them were survivors of childhood sexual abuse or other forms of domestic violence. This, coupled with events in her own childhood, when she and her siblings were sexually molested by her father and stepmother, inspired her to make the documentary wherein she interviews the other Angela Sheltons, culminating in her confrontation with her father. Following the documentary, Shelton created a Survival Manual to help survivors of violence heal: www.survivormanual.com

Selection Number 13: Speak

At first glance, this film seems to be a typical teen movie, but it actually deals with a little covered topic – teen sexual assault. The film is told from the perspective of Melinda Sordino (Kristen Stewart), a sardonic teen who starts a new year of high school as a selective mute. She is ostracised by her peers and labelled her a ‘squealer’ as she had called the police to a house party. The truth about why she did this is not revealed until much later when Melinda herself comes to terms with her trauma and finds the courage to speak out. Based on the Laurie Halse Anderson novel of the same name, the film shows how sexual assault can damage a young person’s sense of identity and explores the difficulties victims face in verbalising their trauma and telling a person in authority what happened.

https://youtu.be/uSCzahFXMrs

Selection Number 14: The Hunting Ground

The Hunting Ground is a documentary that exposes and discusses rape culture on American university campuses. Aired at the Sundance Film Festival this year, the film sparked strong reactions, gaining almost unanimous praise from critics and a standing ovation from audiences, but also passionate denial and skepticism from some viewers. Inspired by The Invisible War (selection number 15), The Hunting Ground follows Andrea Pino and Annie E. Clark, two survivors of sexual assault on campus who refused to be intimidated or silenced by their respective school administration and became activists on rape culture. A day before the film was released in theatres, the Campus Accountability and Safety Act was re-introduced by a bipartisan group of US Senators accompanied by Pino and Clark.

Selection Number 15: The Invisible War

This award-winning documentary is an investigation into rape and sexual assault within the United States Armed Forces. It features interviews with veterans from various branches of the armed forces, journalists, advocates, mental health professionals and members of the military justice system, among others, and touches on the inadequate care for survivors of sexual assault, failures to address incidences of sexual assault and forced expulsion of survivors from service. The film, which calls for changes to the way the military handles reports of sexual assault, has won numerous awards and has had some influence on government policies aimed at reducing the prevalence of rape in the armed forces.

Selection number 16: The Storm Makers

This Cambodian-French co-production documents human trafficking in Cambodia where most of the victims of human trafficking are young women who are lured with promises of better opportunities abroad. In reality, they are held prisoner and forced to work in horrific conditions, sometimes as prostitutes.This film follows the story of a particular young peasant woman, Aya, who was sold to work in Malaysia aged 16, where she did not receive any salary and was beaten and abused. She returned to her village with a child, the result of rape. It also documents the lives of two powerful traffickers known as ‘Storm Makers’.

16 Ways That Kids and Teens Can Help Stop Violence Against Women and Girls

Posted on December 5, 2015 by regina

Violence Against Women (VAW) is one of the biggest and most brutal human rights issues in the world with 1 in 3 women experiencing some form of gender-based violence at some point in their lives. Like many human rights issues, VAW affects not just adults but also kids and teenagers. Many women and girls face domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, street harassment, cyber-VAW, human trafficking, and forced prostitution. Certain forms of gender-based violence such as female genital mutilation (FGM), breast ironing, and child marriage are performed exclusively on girls under the age of 18.

VAW is perpetuated, enforced, and normalised by centuries of social and cultural norms which work to preserve the patriarchal status quo in all but a handful of cultures worldwide. To effectively end VAW for good, advocates, activists, and communities need to take the long view because it would take several generations of progress before change can be permanent… and it has to begin with children and young people.

Educating children and teenagers about sexual consent and gender equality is an important part of changing the world into one where women and girls can reach their full potential in safety and peace. However, we also need to get young people involved in actively preventing and stopping the violence. Indeed, in recent years, a movement of young people from teenage Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousafzai to 18-year-old Afghani Rap artiste Sonita Alizadeh have risen to fight for an end to VAW and ensure a better future for them and their sisters.

As a starting point for all kids and teens out there, here are 16 ideas that you can put into action to help stop VAW. This is just a starting point. If there are alternative ways in which you feel they can contribute, do it because helping end violence doesn’t come with an age restriction.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

Written by Samantha Carroll and Regina Yau. Introduction by Regina Yau.

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At School

Ideas For Kids and Teens #1: Recognise the Signs. Recognising the signs is the first step towards helping prevent and intervene to stop VAW. Forms of VAW that kids and teens might come across in their communities and among their peers include relationship violence, street harassment, rape/sexual assault, child/forced marriage, and female genital mutilation – all of which can affect girls under the age of 18. Each type of VAW carries certain signs that you can spot if you know what to look for. For example: Some of the signs to be aware of when you are in a relationship or someone you care about is in a relationship, are control and manipulation, jealousy bordering on possessiveness, belittling, an unpredictable temper and isolation from social circles and family. So make an effort to learn what the signs are and you may well be able to save a girl or woman’s life or change it for the better.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #2: Demand For Education. Officially, school is where you get your formal education – where you learn maths, languages, history, and science. Unofficially, school is also where you learn to fit into society by knowing what is normal and what is unacceptable. This includes relationships and gender roles. So get pro-active with creating a school culture where misogyny, sexism, bullying, and VAW is not tolerated. Some actions you can take include: rallying your school to invite experts, anti-VAW activists and abuse survivors to talk about VAW with everyone. Lobbying for your school to offer a proper sex education module which includes the subject of sexual consent and healthy respectful relationships.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #3: Read! Read! Read! Reading is one of the ways that we get to step into other people’s shoes, and the Young Adult (YA) genre does a great job at helping us understand the feelings of girls who have experienced rape or who are stuck in abusive relationships. Books dealing with subjects of violence toward girls and women help us empathise with those who have been affected by abuse. Talk to your school librarian and your teachers – ask them if it’s possible to include YA books that deal with these issues. If your school has a reading club, suggest a few YA titles for the entire group to read. No luck with your school librarian or your school doesn’t have a reading club? Get a group of friends together to pool some money to buy the books and take turns to read them. Here are a few books to get you, your friends, and your school started: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, Don’t Breathe a Word by Holy Cupala, and SLUT by Katie Cappiello & Meg McInerney.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #4: Boys – Call It Out. If you are part of a sports team or any other all-male club at school or if you go to an all-boys school, chances are you would have heard some of your male peers speak disrespectfully about your female peers, female teachers, or female coaches using derogatory words such as “bitch”, “slut”, “whore” and so on. You might even have heard them crack jokes rape jokes, or witnessed some of them behave aggressively towards women and girls. Don’t stay silent – speak up and call out such behaviour when you come across it. Do it one-on-one or in a small group if you are all friends. If your peers who need to be called out are extremely dominant or hold more social power in your group than you do, seek out an adult for help with dealing with the situation before it escalates, be it a male teacher who is strongly anti-bullying or a coach who will not stand for sexist behaviour. Need more ideas? Check out the resources offered by the White Ribbon Campaign which is the largest movement of men and boys in the world fighting to end VAW.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #5: Girls – Support Your Sisters. In many cultures and communities, women and girls often have only one ally when facing down misogyny and VAW – other women and girls. However, many women and girls are also socialised to uphold these norms. For example: Grandmothers and mothers in various African and Asian cultures still play an instrumental role in perpetuating the custom of female genital mutilation. Part of helping stop VAW is by supporting other women and girls in defiance of (and to dismantle) cultural and social norms. Girls need to champion one another by mentoring and helping each other achieve their goals, and celebrating each other’s successes. And if you see your female peer face any form of VAW, get all your female friends together to stand up with her and for her.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #6: Take Action Together. Don’t think that you can’t help change things for women and girls because you’re “just a kid”. There’s nothing more powerful than kids standing up for the rights of their peers. Even more powerful would be kids standing together to stop VAW in schools and communities. This can be done in many ways ranging from two friends banding together to face down the Slut-shaming of a classmate, to starting a feminist club at school where members can take collective action such as starting petitions to stop a classmate from being forced to marry and staging sit-ins to demand for stronger anti-bullying measures.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #7: Honour and Observe Awareness Days. Many schools honour and observe major festivals and public holidays as well as annual events such as Sports Day, Children’s Day, and Homecoming. So why not similarly honour and observe the various international awareness days related to women’s human rights, gender equality, and VAW, as part of efforts to stamp out VAW at school and your wide community? Some of the most high profile awareness days include International Women’s Day (March 8th), International Day of the Girl (October 11th), and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (November 25th – December 10th). Some of the ways in which you can get your school and/or peers involved. For example: older teens and college students can working with a supportive teacher or professor to put on a play such as The Vagina Monologues on the day itself or use the day to hold talks about VAW.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #8: Stop Slut-shaming NOW. We’ve all heard the tired old clichés trotted out when people discuss rape and sexual assault cases: “She was wasted”, “she was wearing a short skirt”, “she was asking for it”. Even in cases when a woman or girl has said no during before or during a sexual altercation, she will more likely than not be blamed for the incident of rape by her peers and community, and even her family. Slut-shaming leads to victim blaming – don’t do it. Do this instead: speak up when other kids do it to a female classmate; don’t put down female friends and classmates who wear sexy clothes; push back against ridiculous double standards for school attire where boys are allowed carte blanche and girls are given a ridiculously long list of what not to wear.

At Home and in the Wider Community

Ideas For Kids and Teens #9: Ring The Bell. If you are the neighbour of a family experiencing domestic violence, please take the time to ring their bell when you hear a violent situation happening. Do it safely – Ask a grown-up you know to go with you to intervene by using the old neighbourly approach of asking to borrow a cup of sugar or some milk as an excuse. If no grown-ups are around and you’re out with your friends when you hear or witness domestic violence, gather your courage and ring the bell as a group – you could save someone’s life by interrupting the violence. Check out what this group of kids did in a PSA by our partner, Breakthrough:

Ideas For Kids and Teens #10: Use Your Birthday For Good. For your next birthday, start a collection drive by asking your friends and family members to contribute items needed by your local women’s shelter instead of bringing you a birthday gift. There are plenty of women’s shelters that accept donations in the form of clothes, bed linens, grocery gift cards, feminine hygiene products, toys and books for kids, and diapers for young children. Encourage your female friends and family members to donate clothing that they no longer need. It is important that the clothing donated is still usable, as some of the women receiving the clothes will likely wear donated items to job interviews or legal settings such as divorce/custody court.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #11: Volunteer In Your Spare Time. Young people are a talented bunch, so transform your talents into a superpower for good by helping anti-VAW organisations to raise funds or get things done. Here are just some of the things that you could do: If you are a whiz at building websites and programming, check in with local crisis centres that could use help keeping their websites up, or could just need computer assistance and maintenance. If you’re good at Photoshop, sign up to help design posters and flyers for your local women’s shelter’s next fundraiser. If you are well-versed at using Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram or any other social media networks, offer to help keep your local anti-VAW organisation’s social media account up-to-date.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #12: Social Media Rule #1 – Share to Care! If you’re a teenager on social media be it Tumblr, Instagram, or any other social media network, use your social media account to help raise awareness about VAW. Follow the social media accounts of anti-VAW activists and organisations and start sharing some of the news links, information, and pictures they share with their followers. You don’t need to reblog/retweet/share everything they do but if you see something you think is interesting, share it. Information is power and the one helping to spread the right information is powerful.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #13: Join The Online Intervention Brigade. According to UN Women, online VAW is rising as increased access to the internet collides with existing cultural and social norms that condone or perpetuate gender-based violence and misogyny. Young women in the age range of 18 to 24 are uniquely likely to experience online stalking and sexual harassment in addition to physical threats. If someone in your social media community exhibits this type of behaviour, take action to intervene safely in a number of ways. Talk privately to other members of the forum, page or community about what is happening and get their support to back each other up when facing down aggressive and misogynistic groups. Similarly, when you see someone courageously taking a cyber VAW perpetrator to task, chime in. This action has 3 effects: it lets the upstander know that someone else agrees with them; it signals to the victim that the community will not stand for the treatment she is receiving; and it lets the perpetrator(s) know that more than one person is calling out their behaviour.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #14: Break The Silence. Kids and teens from abusive families or communities that practice culturally-sanctioned VAW such as FGM are often taught or forced by grown-ups and elders to keep silent about what’s happening. Threats of punishment, guilt manipulation, and enforced isolation from the wider community are often used to keep kids and teens from getting help for themselves or their mothers and sisters. If you are a kid or teen in that situation, please know that you are not alone and that help is out there but you need to reach out to get it (or know how to accept it). Here are a couple of potential ‘first steps’ you can take: if you are part of an online community, reach out to your friends there to ask for help; if your teacher asks you to stay back because he or she notices that something is wrong, tell them what’s happening at home.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #15: Be A Friend. If you suspect that your friend and/or their female family member is suffering from any form of VAW, take action. Don’t stay silent if you notice bruises on them or that your friend has become uncharacteristically silent or angry all the time. Encourage your friend to talk about it with you and listen to them. If they are open to it, encourage them to report what’s happening to the authorities (and when they do, be there to support them). If you’re an older teen at a party, you see that your female friend is drunk, and a boy is propositioning her even though she cannot give consent, step in and offer to take her home if you can drive or order a cab and put her in it to send her home. If you feel like you are out of your depth about helping your friend, tell teachers, coaches, school counsellors and other grown-ups who can help.

Ideas For Kids and Teens #16: Adults Needs Reminders Too. Last but not least – grown-ups may be in charge but that doesn’t mean they are perfect or will do the right thing. Too many adults are good people who turn a blind eye when they see VAW happening. Some of them might feel that it’s pointless to intervene; some of them may be afraid to do so for fear of breaking social taboos; some of them may think that VAW is normal. If the grown-ups around you are reluctant to intervene to stop VAW happening to friends, neighbours, and family members because they believe it’s “none of our business”, give them a nudge to do the right thing by reminding them that VAW is wrong and woman and kids next door and/or in your family and community could get hurt or worse – killed.

As a young person, you have the power to shape a future where VAW becomes socially unacceptable. Someday, you might be that police detective who puts away a rapist, a teacher who stops a girl from being forced into marriage, or a politician who pushes through legislation to outlaw FGM for good. Today? Start by by doing what you can, where you are, with whatever you have – you never know whether one small action will start a whole movement for change.

16 Filmmakers Making Films About Violence Against Women (And Telling the Right Stories)

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Suloshini Jahanath

Films are a powerful storytelling medium. They have the ability to influence and change the world. How someone chooses to use this medium makes all the difference. In the last few years, a myriad of fiction and non-fiction films have been made about Violence Against Women (VAW) and other women’s rights issues. Many of these films have had a positive impact in the fight against VAW as they are often a powerful vehicle for educating the viewer about issues related to VAW.

For our ‘16 for 16’ campaign this year, we have compiled a list of 16 filmmakers making films about VAW and doing it the right way. These creative artists hail from different countries like Ghana, Iran, Pakistan, Canada and Sweden. They are united in their belief in and commitment to making films that tell stories of women from all walks of life. Many of these films have addressed issues that weren’t being talked about before and brought them into mainstream conversation.

This list encompasses filmmakers from across the globe and amongst their ranks are Academy Award winners and Indie directors. Their films have made an impact in one way or another and tackle different types of VAW in different cultures and communities. Together, they provide a thought-provoking no-holds-barred perspective on the entire issue. We hope that you’ll check out their films and share them with others to provide food for thought and a spur to action that might help your communities get motivated to stop VAW.

Written and compiled by Rubina Singh.

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Filmmaker Against VAW #1: Abeer Zeibak Haddad – Palestine

Abeer Zeibak Haddad is a Palestinian filmmaker, theatre director and actor most well-known for her documentary, Duma (Dolls). Duma is a groundbreaking documentary which encourages survivors of sexual abuse to break their silence and speak out. This is one of the only films made about sexual violence in the Arab region. Abeer believes that the film will encourage more women to speak up and help end the cycle of violence against women in the region. Abeer is currently working on another documentary on honour killings.

Filmmaker Against VAW #2: Deepa Dhanraj – India

Deepa Dhanraj is a noted Indian feminist and documentary filmmaker. She has been a part of the Indian women’s movement since the 1980s and continues to work for women’s rights causes. Throughout her filmmaking career, she has attempted to share the everyday fights of Indian women. Her most influential films Something like a War, Nari Adalat and Enough of this Silence have tackled subjects like family planning and women’s courts. Her latest film, Invoking Justice talks about the life of a young Muslim woman who challenges stereotypes in her community. A strong believer in participatory film making, Deepa uses her work as a tool to bring about change in communities.

Filmmaker Against VAW #3: Deepa Mehta – India and Canada

An internationally acclaimed filmmaker, Deepa Mehta has been the force behind some of the most powerful films addressing VAW. Born in India and now settled in Canada, Deepa’s poignant films have been screened and received recognition at almost every notable film festival in the world. Her elemental Trilogy consisting of three films – Earth, Fire, and Water – addressed issues like same-sex relationships and widow remarriage. A documentary, Let’s Talk About it followed by a fictional feature film, Heaven on Earth, broaches the subject of domestic violence. Her focus on creating films with strong female characters and sharing stories through their point of view has garnered her fame and appreciation across the globe.

Filmmaker Against VAW #4: Deeyah Khan – Norway

Norwegian-born Deeyah Khan is a critically acclaimed music producer, composer, Emmy and Peabody award-winning documentary film director and human rights activist. Her most acclaimed film work is an Emmy Award winning documentary, Banaz: A Love Story tells the story of the honour killing of a young British Kurdish woman who was killed by her own family for choosing to carve her own path in life. Her passion for the cause led her to co-develop the Honour Based Violence Awareness Network (HBVA) in 2012. Deeyah has also received several awards for her work supporting freedom of expression and in 2012 she was awarded the prestigious Ossietzky prize by Norwegian PEN. She is currently continuing her work as an artist and activist through FUUSE, her social purpose music and film company.

Filmmaker Against VAW #5: Elizabeth Tadic – Australia

Elizabeth Tadic is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker, has spent a large part of her life in an attempt to share stories of marginalised people. Her work with the international television show, ‘Dateline’ as well as her filmmaking projects, have taken her to remote parts of the world. Her latest documentary, UMOJA: No Men Allowed has won 12 international awards since its premier in 2010. The film shares the incredible story of a village in Kenya, founded by women, for women. Elizabeth has also been awarded the United Nations Media Peace Award in 2006 for her impactful work in Television and Films.

Filmmaker Against VAW #6: Evan Grae Davis – USA

Evan Grae Davis is an activist and documentary filmmaker based in the USA. He’s the director of the acclaimed documentary It’s a Girl which highlights the prevalence of female infanticide and gendercide in India and China. The documentary has been appreciated all over the world for beautifully capturing the plight of over 200 million missing women. Evan also participated in and edited The Pixel Project’s “Who Is Your Male Role Model?: YouTube campaign featuring non-violent men from different walks of life sharing their views on how men can be positive role models in the fight against VAW. His video for the campaign can be seen here.

Filmmaker Against VAW #7: Hossein Martin Fazeli – Iran

For over 15 years Hossein Martin Fazeli has been making fiction and non-fiction films on various human rights issues including VAW. His most celebrated work, Women on the Frontline, talks about the women’s freedom movement in Iran. Over the years, he has received over 37 international awards for his work, much of which highlights socio-cultural issues in the Iranian region. He is currently working on two more feature documentaries on women’s issues including one on Phoolan Devi – the legendary ‘Bandit Queen’ from India.

Filmmakers Against VAW #8: Ilse and Femke van Velzen – Holland

Twin sisters Ilse and Femke van Velzen have been making hard-hitting documentaries on various social issues since 2002. Born in the Netherlands, they currently work independently under their own label, IF Productions. Their documentaries have had a strong focus on the developing world, particularly VAW. Fighting the Silence, a film highlighting the sexual violence against women and girls during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s war, gives voice to over 80,000 victims. The sisters also creatively use their films as sustainable educational projects. Through the Mobile Cinema Foundation they take films about sexual violence from one community to another to encourage a conversation around the subject.

Filmmaker Against VAW #9: Kim Longinotto – UK

One of most internationally acclaimed filmmakers on this list, British born Kim Longinotto has been behind some of the most impactful documentaries on women in the last two decades. Since her first film in 1976, she has highlighted issues from Female Genital Mutilation to child marriage and prostitution. One of her most famous films is Pink Saris, where she shared the story of Sampat Pal, a child bride who grew up to lead the ‘Gulabi Gang’, a group of women who spoke up against corruption and violence in their community. She was awarded the prestigious BAFTA award for this film.

Filmmaker Against VAW #10: Lourdes Portillo – Mexico and the USA

Lourdes Portillo is a noted Mexican-American screenwriter and filmmaker. Passionate about filmmaking from a young age, Lourdes’ films have a special focus on Latin American, Mexican and Chicano issues. Her first film, Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo was nominated for an Academy award for best documentary. It told the story of a group of Argentine mothers who protested for their missing children. Another notable human rights documentary, Señorita Extraviada told the tragic story of hundreds of kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico. This film allowed Lourdes to truly understand her role as a filmmaker and how films can be used to confront oppression.

Filmmaker Against VAW #11: Marcela Zamora Chamorro – Costa Rica

Marcela Zamora Chamorro is an up-and-coming filmmaker who completed her journalism degree in Costa Rica and then joined the International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. Her first feature documentary, Maria in Nobody’s Land told the story of the illegal and extremely dangerous journey of three women to the USA. The courageous film has participated in film festivals in over 14 countries and received many awards.

Filmmaker Against VAW #12: Nima Sarvestani – Iran and Sweden

Nima Sarvestani started out his career as a journalist in Iran before moving to Sweden in 1984. He has since been working as a documentary filmmaker through his company, Nimafilm Production. Many of his films focus on socio-political issues in the Middle East. One of his standout films on women, No Burqas Behind Bars, looks at the stories of women prisoners in Afghanistan. Another gem, I was Worth 50 Sheep, shows the story of a child bride under the Taliban rule. Nima makes his documentaries with an acute sensitivity and has won a number of prestigious awards for his work.

Filmmaker Against VAW #13: Rebecca Barry – Australia

A storyteller at heart, Rebecca Barry has been making thought-provoking films for the past decade. After graduating from the Australian Film Television and Radio School in 2003, Rebecca has been using the power of filmmaking to talk about social issues in Australia and across the world. Her 2013 feature documentary, I am a Girl, won her many accolades for showing the stories of six young girls from six different countries and the different issues that they face simply because they’re women. Through the film, Rebecca aimed to put a ‘human face’ to the horrifying statistics that she had read around VAW. She continues to make an impact through her media production company, Media Stockade, which specializes in documentaries and other factual programs.

Filmmaker Against VAW #14: Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy – Pakistan

Oscar and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy is one of the most well-known female filmmakers from Pakistan. Born in Pakistan and educated in USA, Sharmeen has made over a dozen documentaries highlighting various human rights and women’s rights issues. Her work has been so impactful that she was listed as one of Time Magazines 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2012. Her Academy Award winning documentary, Saving Face shares the story of a plastic surgeon who performs reconstructive surgeries on acid attack victims. Her other films such as Transgender: Pakistan’s Open Secret and Pakistan’s Taliban Generation have addressed difficult issues as well. Sharmeen hopes that through her films she will be able to give a voce to those who cannot be heard.

Filmmaker Against VAW #15: Shelley Saywell – Canada

Born to a professor father and social worker mother, Shelley Saywell has been socially conscious from childhood. She started her filmmaking career in 1986 and has made more than ten hard-hitting documentaries on VAW and other human rights issues. Her passion and talent have won her a number of awards including an Emmy for her film, Crimes of Honour, which talked about the issue of honour killing and femicide. She is also the force behind films such as No Man’s Land: Women Frontline Journalists, In the Name of Family and Kim’s Story: The Road from Vietnam, all of which look at various perspectives of women’s rights.

Filmmaker Against VAW #16: Yaba Badoe – Ghana and the United Kingdom

Born in Ghana, Yaba Badoe moved to the UK as a child to complete her education. She grew up to be a noted journalist, author and filmmaker. With a passion to share her ideas and shape the world, Yaba has created some beautiful, award-winning films around women. In 2010, she released The Witches of Gambaga, a film that told the story of a community in Ghana which condemned women as witches based on the death of a chicken. Horrified at the existence of such a situation in modern-day Ghana, Yaba captured the story on film and brought it into mainstream conversation. Her latest film, The Art of Ama Ata Aidoo, showcases the story of Africa’s foremost feminist writer Ama Ata Aidoo.

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Photo credits:

The filming of “It’s A Girl” (top photo) – Photo courtesy of Evan Grae Davis
Abeer Zeibak Haddad – From www.thisweekinpalestine.com
Deepa Dhanraj – Photo from www.LiveMint.com/Aniruddha Chowdhury
Deepa Mehta – Photo from www.hamiltonmehta.com/Devyani Saltzman
Deeyah Khan – Photo courtesy of Deeyah Khan
Elizabeth Tadic – Photo from Vimeo.
Evan Grae Davis – Photo courtesy of Evan Grae Davis
Hossein Martin Fazeli – Photo from www.fazalifilms.com/Hossein Martin Fazeli
Ilse and Femke van Velzen – Photo from www.ifproductions.nl/Ilse and Femke van Velzen
Kim Longinotto – Photo from The Guardian/Sean Smith
Lourdes Portillo – Photo from www.twitchfilm.com
Marcela Zamora Chamorro – Photo from www.mediolleno.com/Moonlight, Weddings & Events Photography
Nima Sarvestani – Photo from www.nimafilmsweden.com
Rebecca Barry – Photo from www.imdb.com/Diane McDonald
Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy – Photo from www.sharmeenobaidfilms.com
Shelley Saywell – Photo from www.wift.com
Yaba Badoe – Photo from Wikipedia/Rashde Fidigo / ZIFF

The Pixel Project Selection 2015: 16 Songs About Violence Against Women (and Staying Strong and Positive)

Posted on December 2, 2015 by regina

Music can help us transcend our pain in a way that not many other art forms are able to. Music makes us feel less alone in our struggles because it often expresses how we feel in ways we cannot articulate. The Pixel Project believes in the power of music to heal, inspire, and send a strong message about violence against women. This is reflected in our ongoing Music For Pixels campaign through which we collaborate with various artistes around the world. This past summer, we held The Music For Pixels Summer Charity Concert, a 12-hour music marathon concert on Google Hangout which featured 23 artists from 5 countries.

This year’s 16 selections of Songs About Violence Against Women and Staying Strong and Positive, are from different genres and decades to ensure that everyone can find a track to be inspired by. And if our list fails to inspire, it is our sincere hope that you find the soundtrack to your life none the less, as everyone needs a set of songs they can relate to in times of adversity.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

Written and compiled by Samantha Carroll

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Song Selection Number One: Anthem – Leonard Cohen

“There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” Be unwavering in your conviction that everything will be all right and accept that perfection doesn’t exist – this is what Cohen is telling us with Anthem, a song that is as timeless as it is profound.

Song Selection Number 2: Black Eyes, Blue Tears – Shania Twain

With lyrics like “Definitely found my self-esteem / Finally I’m forever free to dream / No more cryin’ in the corner / No excuses no more bruises”, Canadian Country-Pop superstar Shania Twain’s Black Eyes, Blue Tears is a track that every survivor can rock out to, it’s a fierce and contains an authoritative NO! to abuse.

Song Selection Number 3: Extraordinary Machine – Fiona Apple

When Fiona Apple croons: “Be kind to me, or treat me mean / I’ll make the most of it, I’m an extraordinary machine”, she isn’t saying that she’ll take cruelty on the chin, she’s stating that she’s (to quote Marianne Williamson) powerful beyond measure. It is only with an attitude of pure tenacity that we can rise up after a devastating fall.

Song Selection Number 4: Fight Song – Rachel Platten

We all have what Platten calls “wrecking balls” inside our heads. This is especially true for anyone who has faced abuse and has had to deal with diminished self-esteem as a result. Fight Song could be a metaphor for whatever it is that helps us recover and gives us hope and strength to bravely face another day.

Song Selection Number 5: His Daughter – Molly Kate Kestner

Kestner’s His Daughter is a heart-breaking ballad about a young girl who witnesses the unhealthy, abusive relationship of her parents and how it shapes the rest of her life. Children – particularly young girls – who have grown up in an environment where they have been subjected to domestic violence will relate to this song.

Song Selection Number 6: Just Because I’m a Woman – Dolly Parton

Country music isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but there’s no denying that it is a great genre for storytelling. What Dolly Parton has given us with Just Because I’m a Woman is a relatable and candid understanding of what it is like to be a woman in an unequal, gender stereotyped society. “My mistakes are no worse than yours / just because I’m a woman.”

Song Selection Number 7: Note to Self – Jake Bugg

Here’s an idea that many women may well be able to relate : as women, we sometimes forget how much we’re capable of, or we never learnt what we were capable of. Jake Bugg has a novel idea: write a note to yourself, say the things to yourself that you’ve always wanted to hear someone else say to or about you. Bugg’s Note to Self reminds us that we need to be self-compassionate.

Song Selection Number 8: Salute – Little Mix

This track is a wonderful call to solidarity amongst women. There is strength in supportive sisterhoods and Little Mix captures that perfectly when they sing: “Representing all the women, Salute!” Little Mix’s audience is primarily young girls and what better a message to spread than one of female empowerment.

Song Selection Number 9: Sister – Andrew Belle

Andrew Belle’s Sister is about the way a sibling tries to understand the abuse hia sister is going through. “He tried to kill you / and you allow it.” The sibling sees all sorts of amazing qualities in her sister and can’t quite wrap her head around why or how she ended up in such a hostile situation. Many survivors of abuse feel at some point that everyone deems them ‘stupid’ for being with an abusive partner. Sometimes we forget that there are people in our lives, like the sibling in Belle’s song, who hold us in high esteem.

Song Selection Number 10: Til It Happens to You – Lady Gaga

[TRIGGER WARNING: May be distressing to survivors of rape and sexual assault] Written by Gaga and Diane Warren for the documentary The Hunting Ground, which turns the spotlight on rape on college campuses in the U.S., Til It Happen to You is a raw and emotionally charged ballad. The music video – directed by Catherine Hardwicke – is harrowing and intentionally provocative but drives home the reality of young women being assaulted and intimidated in educational environments.

Song Selection Number 11: Unpretty – TLC

Through TLC’s anthem Unpretty, we get to understand how a boyfriend or spouse can coerce us into believing we have physical flaws that need correcting. The pressure of it all can leave us with little to no self-esteem. “My outsides look cool / My insides are blue / Every time I think I’m through / It’s because of you”.

Song Selection Number 12: Welcome to My Truth – Anastacia

“Through it all / I’ve hit about a million walls / Welcome to my truth, I still love” Compassion is how we heal and learning to love again is part of that process. The love that powerhouse Pop artiste Anastacia refers to in this song isn’t one of a romantic nature, it is a love steeped in empathy and benevolence. Don’t let your abuser sully all that is still beautiful and sacred to you.

Song Selection Number 13: What it feels like for a Girl – Madonna

Madonna addresses misogyny and the stereotypical roles women are meant to play in society and focuses on the skewed notion that femininity or possessing feminine qualities, makes a person weak. What it feels like for a Girl opens with dialogue by the character Julie, from the film The Cement Garden: “Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots. ‘Cause it’s OK to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading. ‘Cause you think that being a girl is degrading. But secretly you’d love to know what it’s like… Wouldn’t you? What it feels like for a girl.”

Song Selection Number 14: Whole Damn Year – Mary J. Blige

What happens to your relationship with men when you have been violated by a man? Can you enter into a romantic relationship with a man again and will you ever be able to trust that he won’t abuse you? These are the themes of Mary J. Blige’s Whole Damn Year. “Gon’ take a long, long year for me to trust somebody.”

Song Selection Number 15: Yesterday is Gone (My Dear Kay) – Lenny Kravitz

In Yesterday is Gone, Kravitz addresses a woman named ‘Kay’. While we, the listeners, may not know who Kay is or what predicament she is in, the encouragement and wisdom the lyrics express is inspiring. “You can’t get nowhere / Staying at home and crying / You can’t go on living in the past / The one thing constant is that there is always change”

Song Selection Number 16: Young Hearts Run Free – Candi Staton

In 1976, Staton delivered this message of autonomy, and we’re still dancing to it today. This song was written after Staton come through an abusive relationship herself and is a bold anthem about free love and independence. “I’m gonna love me, for the rest of my days / Encourage the babies every time they say / “Self-preservation is what’s really going on today””

The Pixel Project Selection 2015: 16 Notable Facebook Pages by Anti-Violence Against Women Organisations

Posted on November 28, 2015 by regina

In the last 11 years, Facebook has become a social media powerhouse, with over 1.44 billion monthly active users as of March 2015. Facebook has grown from a basic social connection website to a life platform. It is used to find, connect, and catch up with friends, to read the news, to conduct business, to shop, and to learn.

Facebook is also used to find causes, organisations, and events that are important to us and to advocate for various issues. Now Facebook users can learn about and support global issues from their own homes. Violence against women (VAW) is one of the global human rights issues finding supporters on Facebook. Now a story about VAW can be read, watched, or heard via Facebook by millions of people around the globe. They can follow organisational news, participate in grassroots campaigns, and donate right from their mobile phone or computer.

This is our fourth annual list of recommended Facebook pages and we have selected them because they make an effort to temper humour with information, offer a significant way for their readers to help, and make those in the fight feel more powerful and part of something greater. They present a unique perspective on a global issue.

In this article, we highlight 16 Facebook pages fighting violence against women that are unique in their messages and their delivery. So choose a couple to ‘like’, or better yet ‘like’ them all, get informed, and take action.

Written and compiled by Rebecca DeLuca

Recommended Facebook Page #1: Battered Women’s Justice Project – United Kingdom

The Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP) has been a national UK resource on the criminal and civil justice systems’ responses to domestic violence since 1994. The organisation provides technical assistance to victims of domestic violence, civil justice practitioners, and to the general public to promote systemic change. The BWJP’s Facebook page includes news, opinion pieces, and is also an information resource for other anti-VAW activists.

Recommended Facebook Page #2: Break the Cycle – United States

Break the Cycle was founded in 1996 and provides preventative dating and domestic violence education for teens and young adults. By ‘liking’ the organisations’ Facebook page, fans will stay up-to-date on laws and bills passed to support the cause and statistics and research for activists. Though an American organisation, Break the Cycle also shares workshops and educational information to create global leaders in dating abuse prevention.

Recommended Facebook Page #3: Canadian Women’s Foundation – Canada

The Canadian Women’s Foundation’s mission is to empower women and girls to move out of poverty, out of violence and into confidence. Founded in 1991, the Foundation addresses the root causes of inequality to help women create safer families and communities. Now in its 24th year, the Foundation has invested in over 1,300 community programs in the world. Updates from these organisations, including photos, videos, and events, are all visible on the organisation’s Facebook page.

Recommended Facebook Page #4: Domestic Abuse Intervention Program (DAIP) – United States

The Domestic Abuse Intervention Program (DAIP) fights to end violence against women. Founded in 1980, the organisation offers domestic violence training and resources based on The Duluth Model, which continues to evolve and innovate around working together as a community to end domestic violence.

Recommended Facebook Page #5: Engender – Scotland

Engender has been working towards creating a safer Scotland for more than 20 years. The organisation aims to increase women’s power and influence and demonstrate the impact sexism has on women and on Scotland. When ‘liking’ Engender on Facebook, fans will be exposed to local events and workshops, updates on various partnerships including “Write to End Violence Against Women Awards”, and statistics to use in their own activism projects.

Recommended Facebook Page #6: FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture – United States

FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture was founded by creative educators, organisers and activists Hannah Brancato and Rebecca Nagle. The group utilises imaginative tactics to have honest, public conversations about sexual violence. Some of their more well-known tactics include projecting “Rape is Rape” onto the US Capitol Building and releasing a parody Playboy anti-rape party guide. The FORCE Facebook page is a starting point for sexual assault activists, as they partner with major campaigns including The Monument Quilt. Though located in the United States, they share virtual events for Facebook fans worldwide.

Recommended Facebook Page #7: Futures without Violence – United States

Founded in 1980, Futures without Violence works to end domestic and dating violence, child abuse, sexual assault and more. They were monumental in developing the Violence Against Women Act passed by the US Congress, and continue to advocate for the safety of women and girls. Beyond activism, Futures without Violence trains professionals to improve responses to violence and abuse.

Recommended Facebook Page #8: Gender Based Violence (GBV) Prevention Network – Africa

The Gender Based Violence (GBV) Prevention Network is a network of activists and organisations working together to stop violence against women. With over 500 members in 18 different countries, the GBV Prevention Network represents the Horn and East and Southern Africa. The Network’s Facebook Page welcomes discussion and promotes advancement, innovation, and sharing expertise.

Recommended Facebook Page #9: Guttmacher Institute – International

The Guttmacher Institute uses research, policy analysis and public education to advance women’s reproductive rights and sexual health worldwide. For over 50 years, the Institute has used their work to advance discussion, policy, and program development. Activists may use the organisation’s Facebook page as a resource for statistics, laws, and more when developing their own programs.

Recommended Facebook Page #10: Ilitha Labantu – Africa

Ilitha Labantu is active in women’s issues, focusing on the genocide in Rwanda, female mutilations in Ivory Coast, refugee women of South Sudan, and more. The organisation’s vision is to eliminate all kinds of domestic violence, especially those that occur in domains where the ideology of privacy is strong. Founded in 1989, Ilitha Labantu’s walk in centre provides vast services free of charge, including counselling, support groups, domestic violence shelter, legal services, and more.

Recommended Facebook Page #11: Jewish Women International – Worldwide

Jewish Women International’s mission is to break the cycle of violence against women and girls. The organisation fights to ensure all women and girls thrive in healthy relationships, control their finances, and grow as leaders. JWI develops programming to protect constituents, provide resources and training to other organisations, and work at the grassroots levels to lobby for bill changes. When ‘liking’ JWI on Facebook, fans will be able to follow events and conferences through photos and updates, read opinion pieces, and see news updates.

Recommended Facebook Page #12: Men Against Rape and Discrimination (MARD) – India

Men against Rape and Discrimination (MARD) is a social initiative creating awareness about gender equality and respect towards women. Launched by Bollywood actor and director Farhan Akhtar, MARD uses music to convey their messages and inspires listeners to create a better society. The MARD Facebook page shares news, campaign updates, music, and videos with their fans as a way to support and encourage its mission.

Recommended Facebook Page #13: Mending the Sacred Hoop – United States

Mending the Sacred Hoop is an organisation focused on restoring the leadership of Native women. Through the Technical Assistance Project, they provide training to support community efforts to end violence against women. Their Facebook page shares information about various campaigns activists can get involved in, both local and global.

Recommended Facebook Page #14: Promundo – Brazil

Promundo has been engaging men and boys to promote gender equality and to end violence against women since 1997. Founded in Brazil, the organisation promotes non-violence masculinities and gender relations. Connecting with activists in Brazil, the United States, and Rwanda, Promundo uses various campaigns, including the International Men and Gender Equality Survey, conflict and security, economic justice, and more.

Recommended Facebook Page #15: YWCA – United States

YWCA is dedicated to empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. Though founded and located in the United States, YWCA serves more than 25 million women and girls in 125 different countries. The organisation shares legal information and legal updates on their Facebook page, which is useful for other activists to use in their programming. Also, the YWCA holds a yearly conference and gala, and shares live updates for those who cannot attend.

Recommended Facebook Page #16: Zonta International – Worldwide

Zonta International is a global organisation empowering women through service and advocacy. Founded in 1919, members, also known as ‘Zontians,’ volunteer their time, talents, and support all over the world. Zonta envisions a world in which women’s rights are recognised as human rights and a world where no woman lives in fear of violence. They focus on improving the legal, political, economic, educational, health and professional status of women, prompting justice and universal respect, and more. On the organisation’s Facebook Page, fans will find news about international events Zontians are participating in, webcasts, conferences and workshops fans can attend remotely.

The Pixel Project Selection 2015: 16 Striking Anti-Violence Campaigns for the Cause to End Violence Against Women

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Bridget Hudacs

Every year, we at The Pixel Project come across a wide variety of innovative and powerful anti-Violence Against Women campaigns by our fellow activists and non-profits from around the globe, and 2015 is no exception. Notably, many campaigns took place this year in the United Kingdom, which signifies that great efforts are being made to eradicate Violence Against Women in that region. Still, much is to be done in the UK and worldwide.

We acknowledge that anti-VAW campaigners put themselves in perilous situations to advocate for the safety of others and we are immeasurably grateful for their bravery. From women marching the streets to women combating harassment online, each and every action, large or small, counts.

So today, in honour of all VAW activists, nonprofits and grassroots group who toil in such thankless situations to bring about positive change to the lives of women and girls facing violence, we present 16 of the most striking campaigns/programmes we have come across in the last year of our work.

What these campaigns have in common are:

The built-in “water-cooler” factor that gets the community buzzing about the campaign and by extension, the issue of VAW.
A good sense of what works in and for the culture and community where the activist/nonprofit/grassroots group is trying to effect change.

We hope that these campaigns and initiatives inspire you to take action and get on board the cause to end VAW.

It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.

– Written and compiled by Samantha Carroll

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #1: 90days – South Africa

South African performer, ambassador and Board Member of Epic Foundation, Natalie Chapman, started 90days last year as a way to raise funds for survivors of violent and sexual crimes. The 90days campaign’s mission is an ambitious one: 90 performances in 90 consecutive days in 90 different towns. This year, Chapman was able to secure big name South African performers to join her on her 90days initiative, which had them playing at women’s shelters as well as prisons. Chapman believes that it’s important to engage in discourse with perpetrators who are often victims of abuse too.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #2: Campaign4Consent – UK

Campaign4Consent is a campaign that aims to see sexual consent taught in schools as part of the UK’s SRE (sex and relationships education) national curriculum. Campaign4Consent believes that consent is a crucial aspect lacking in SRE as well as information regarding abusive relationships and healthy sexual relationship advice for LGBT teens. The campaign has a letter the public can sign asking UK MP’s to incorporate consent into the national curriculum.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #3: Denim Day – Italy/USA/Canada

The Denim Day campaign is an annual event that takes place on 29^th April and urges participants to wear a pair of jeans to bring awareness to rape prevention. The campaign started in Italy in 1998 when the Italian Supreme Court overturned a rape conviction in which a teenage victim’s jeans were “too tight”. Following the decision, female members of the Italian parliament wore jeans in protest. The movement has since grown and spread to the USA and Canada. This year performers and the campaign’s spokes-couple, Aloe Blacc & Maya Jupiter, attended the Los Angeles rally for Denim Day. The Denim Day campaign also urges men to wear jeans in support of the cause.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #4: Disney Princesses as Acid Attack Victims – Central/South Asia

This year, rock star artist Alexsandro Palombo, created a new visual campaign highlighting the acid attacks that affect women all over Central and South Asia. Palombo took well-known Disney Princesses and illustrated how they looked before and after they had been attacked with acid. These acid attacks not only scar victims, but can leave them blind, deaf and mute. Palombo’s aim was to draw attention to this issue in the most surprising way he could.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #5: Frame Her Right – India

The Frame Her Right campaign is an initiative of Half The Sky Movement, which aims to root out violence against women in cinema and entertainment. The campaign seeks “more gender-sensitized cinema that places women in positive — rather than exploited and exploitable roles.” Frame Her Right acknowledges that violence towards women didn’t start in cinema and also empowers women by providing tools to help them gain access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunity.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #6: Never Alone – Australia

One in three women has/will experience violence from a spouse or partner, and at least one woman is killed every week in Australia. Rosie Batty, whose former husband murdered their son in early 2014, has been working diligently to end domestic violence along with the Never Alone foundation. Members of the public can join the Never Alone campaign by pledging to stand beside those who experience family violence. Batty was awarded Australia’s person of the year for 2015.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #7: Ni Una Menos (Not One Less) campaign – Argentina

The Ni Una Menos campaign aimed to bring awareness to femicide and gender violence in Argentina. In June, 300,000-500,000 protestors marched in the streets of Buenos Aires with signs that read “Ni una menos.” In 2014, one femicide took place every 30 hours in Argentina. During 2008-2013, 124 of the femicide victims were between the ages 13 and 18.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #8: REDress Project – Canada

The REDress Project was started in 2014 by Jamie Bell who collected 600 red dresses and put them on display. The idea was to symbolise the vacancy left by aboriginal women who have been murdered in Canada. This year, the REDress Project experienced significant development and its online community grew. Recently, Sisters in Spirit Vigils and the REDress Project created a call to action asking Canadians to hang a red dress or other red items of women’s clothing on their doors or windows, to raise awareness and stand in solidarity against the murdering of aboriginal women.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #9: Stop Telling Women To Smile – Mexico

In 2012, artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh plastered the streets of New York and Philadelphia with posters to address street harassment. This year, Fazlalizadeh continued her work by traveling to Latin America. Fazlalizade chose to take her Stop Telling Women To Smile campaign to Mexico after receiving countless emails from women in Mexico City who wanted her to bring her message to the region. In Mexico, it is estimated that 44% of women have experienced sexual violence at some point in their lives.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #10: Talk about abuse campaign – UK

Women’s Aid launched the Talk about abuse campaign in September to “encourage people to look for signs of domestic abuse among their friends and family, to talk about it, listen and support, and suggest further help.” The campaign is working to make the public more observant of their loved ones, to recognise when someone they care about is in danger, and to help intervene where possible.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #11: #ThatsNotLove Campaign – USA

#ThatsNotLove is an initiative by OneLove, “a student-led movement to activate, educate, and empower others to change the statistics around relationship violence”. OneLove recently recorded a powerful video emphasising how abuse escalates over the course of a relationship. In the chilling campaign video, we witness how reasons such as “Because I love you, I text “I can’t live without you”” are warning signs of unhealthy behaviour.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #12: The Salvation Army Dress Campaign – South Africa

While everyone on social media was trying to decide if ‘The Dress’ was white and gold or black and blue, the South African branch of The Salvation Army swiftly came up with a clever campaign to draw attention to VAW. The SA Salvation Army tweeted an image of a model wearing The Dress with the caption “The only illusion is if you think it was her choice. One in 6 women are victims of abuse. Stop abuse against women.” The image, which contained the logo for Carehaven, a shelter for abused women and their children run by the SA Salvation Army, instantly went viral.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #13: The Purple Rose Campaign – The Philippines

The Purple Rose Campaign Against the Trafficking of Women and Children, under the guidance of AF3IRM, has been running for the past 15 years and continues to advocate against sex trafficking in the Philippines. AF3IRM has partnered with “local communities and organizations to develop trainings and gather resources to provide sexual violence relief for women and children, to identify and stop trafficking, as well as to address reproductive justice and livelihood needs.”

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #14: Turkish Men Wear Miniskirts In Support Of Women’s Rights – Turkey

After the violent murder of 20-year-old Ozgecan Aslan, men in Turkey took to the streets in miniskirts to campaign against VAW. The protestation spilled over to social media with Turkish men posting images of themselves online alongside the hash tag #ozgecanicinminietekgiy, which translates to “wear a miniskirt for Ozgecan”. The Campaign garnered 900,000 petition signatures asking that institutions to take responsibility for attacks on women.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #15: Violence against Women (VAW) campaign – Nepal

WOREC’s Violence against Women campaign is currently using programs to “address numerous multi-faceted issues responsible for VAW in Nepal.” The campaign aims to tackle the causes of women trafficking and other forms of VAW. WOREC has been working for years to end trafficking and run a Women’s Rehabilitation Centre as well as a Safe House.

Striking Anti-VAW Campaign #16: We Can Stop It – Scotland

Police Scotland created We Can Stop It, a rape prevention campaign that targets young men between the ages to 16 – 27. The campaign’s shocking advertisement asks “Do you really know what rape is?” Police Scotland used this perpetrator-focused approach, rather than telling women to be safe and advising them on how not to get raped. Police Scotland is also working with bar owners to train their staff to intervene when they spot women who may be vulnerable.

16 Ways for Survivors of Violence Against Women to Share Their Stories

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Bridget Hudacs

Storytelling can a powerful tool for violence against women survivors. It can help educate bystanders and demonstrate the impact VAW has on a community. It empowers survivors, giving them a voice to share and make sense of their personal experiences.

Storytelling also has healing power. It is a catalyst for survivors experiencing a variety of emotions – pain, fear, guilt, confusion – and reminds survivors that they are not alone. By telling and listening to stories, survivors can connect with others who had similar experiences. Through this experience, survivors can build life-long relationships, and develop a louder, collective voice.

In this “16 For 16” article, we present 16 ways violence against women survivors can share their stories. These simple ideas touch on various platforms, including peer-to-peer, public, private, mainstream and more to help survivors use and benefit from the power of storytelling.

Written and compiled by Rebecca DeLuca.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #1: Activism Campaigns

There are many innovative campaigns that use unorthodox ways to tell and present survivor stories, for example: The Clothesline Project. The Clothesline Project is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions and share their stories, either anonymously or publicly. Survivors decorate a shirt, which is then displayed publicly with the shirts of other survivors on a clothesline. The hung shirts are viewed by others to demonstrate the impact violence has on our communities.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #2: Anonymous Apps

Telling your story can be a cathartic exercise, even if you’re not ready to publicly identify yourself as a survivor. There are many anonymous apps and websites that are a great platform for anonymous storytelling, including Whisper and PostSecret. Using anonymous apps, your story may be heard by thousands of users, and will have a positive impact on many.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #3: Blogs

A blog is a personal, online diary. Similar to using a journal, it gives you the opportunity to share your thoughts, questions, wishes and stories. Blogs can be made anonymous, or you can tell your story publicly. If setting up a blog seems like a daunting task, you have the opportunity to submit a post to someone else and allow them to circulate it for you.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #4: Connect with an existing organisation

Connecting with an existing organisation ensures your story will be heard. This increases the chances you will positively impact somebody else. Many organisations working to end violence against women produce survivor story series, including The Pixel Project’s Survivor Stories Project, Women Against Abuse, Hollaback!, and the Voices and Faces Project.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #5: Connect with journalists

When discussing violence against women, journalists seek out various angles, including survivor stories. There are various websites that you can sign up for which will allow you to receive story-calls from journalists, including Help a Reporter Out (HARO), to give you an opportunity to share your story.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #6: E-Books

Getting published is no longer as difficult with the option to self-publish. Now, you do not have to acquire an agent, distribute manuscripts, and wait for an acceptance. With the rise of the digital era, everyone has the option to write and publish their own e-book. Now, you can use e-books as a storytelling platform through either fiction or nonfiction.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #7: Educational Groups

Many high schools, colleges and universities have their own assault response centres or groups, focusing on violence against women or girls. Included in these services are counsellors or therapists on call to listen to your story privately. These groups also become an avenue to tell your story on a more public level by becoming a leader or ambassador.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #8: Facebook Groups

Joining a Facebook group is an instant way to connect to other survivors around the world. You are able to post questions, share resources, and give or receive support. It is important to note that while some groups may be private or secret and highly moderated, they are still public to a certain extent, as your Facebook profile is attached and the other group members will be able to identify you.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #9: Magazine Articles

Being selected to be featured in a magazine about survivors is a way to tell your story to the masses. You may be asked to write an article yourself, or be interviewed by someone else. Magazines may be traditional, print publications or digital, including Together for Girls Safe Magazine or xoJane’s “It Happened to Me” series.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #10: Message Boards

Various organisations host message boards and support forums, including Fort Refuge. Here, survivors can connect with each other, share their stories or offer or receive resources. These boards are beneficial because they can be anonymous or public, and are also moderated by an admin or community member, ensuring negativity remains off the message boards.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #11: Opinion Editorial

As a survivor, you may have helpful, informed opinions on news headlines, law changes, and other issues and factors related to violence against women. One way to share your story is through opinion editorials in a newspaper, either digital or in print. Unlike traditional editorials, opinion editorials, also known as Op-Eds, are written from a subjective view and use personal experience to tell a story or argue a point.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #12: Podcast

A podcast is a digital audio recording that users can download and listen to on their own. Podcasts have been used for over 10 years and continue to gain popularity. Many people flock to podcasts because they can listen while doing other things, as opposed to video, television, or reading blogs. When telling your story via podcasting, you have a variety of options. For example: you can tell your story as a guest on a current podcast, including Mart Metcalf’s or The Ruth Institute’s podcast, or you can create your own.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #13: Poetry

A new form of therapy – Poetry Therapy – is developing because writing poetry is an extremely intimate and healing experience. It can also be a very personal or public experience, depending on your desires. You can write poetry for yourself, either in a journal or on a private blog. If you’re comfortable, you can also share your poetry online or a poetry reading.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #14: Twitter

Twitter is an easy, accessible way for survivors to tell their stories. Stories can be told independently through your own personal account, through an anonymous account, or through a hashtag, such as #RapeHasNoUniform. As Scott Berkowitz, Founder and President of RAINN, said, “having this whole community of other people who have been through something similar can be really empowering for people.”

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #15: Volunteer at Events

Volunteering at events is an important way to tell your story because you will be connecting directly with supporters and activists. These events provide various opportunities for storytelling, including keynote speaker, presenter, or mingling with donors, volunteers, or guests.

Survivor Storytelling Suggestion #16: YouTube

YouTube is easily accessible, and one of the fastest growing social media platforms around. Accounts are free, and technology to record, edit, and upload a video are easy to use and inexpensive. Many people go to YouTube to tell, listen and share stories, especially about overcoming adversity. Julie Vu, aka Princess Joules, for example, recently shared her story about domestic violence. The video was viewed 100,964 in one week.

The Pixel Project's "16 For 16" Campaign

The Pixel Project's annual campaign featuring 16 articles about Violence Against Women in honour of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence

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