New Delhi: Renowned author and American playwright Eve Ensler has called for a billion people across the globe to join together to end violence against women this Valentine's Day in 194 countries.
Leading a billion voices across the globe, Ensler, who is best known for her play 'The Vagina Monologues', has said "the time has come; we're not tolerating it any more". The day will be marked worldwide as '1 billion rising' day and marches protesting violence against women in 194 countries will be held.
In the national capital, a march is scheduled at the Parliament Street at 5 PM. The movement seeks to highlight some disturbing facts about violence against women.
One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime, one billion women violated is an atrocity and one billion women dancing is a revolution, the movement's official page said.
"On February 14, 2013, we are inviting one billion women and those who love them to walk out, dance, rise up, and demand an end to this violence. One billion rising will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders," an official message posted on their Facebook page said.
"One billion rising is: A global strike, an invitation to dance, a call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends, an act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers, a refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given, a new time and a new way of being."
Filipina actress and singer Monique Wilson has recorded a new song for the 'One Billion Rising' movement.
In an interview to 'The Telegraph' Ensler said "her event aims to encourage people to strike, dance, shake the world in a series of artistic events and flash mobs."
Read Ensler's newest monologue 'Rising', written in Kerala for the women of India who lead the way.
This could have been anywhere
And was
Mexico City
Manila
Mumbai
Manhattan
Nighttime men
waiting
like wolves
Drooling
for prey
behind
that single dimly painted door
paying nothing
a couple of dollars
or euros
rupees
or pesos
to have her
Enter her
Eat her
Devour her
and throw away her bones.
This could have been anywhere
And was
A Buddhist nun on a bus
Trying to stay dry for the night
A woman leader speaking out against
The repressive government
A young woman traveling with her boyfriend
One lost her voice
The other her following
The last one her life
This could have been anywhere and was
Pink wooden crosses
A stack of stones
Red wilting carnations
Empty chairs in a square
Ribbons flying in a sultry wind
I ask Anna Nighat Kamla Monique Tanisha Emily
Why Why
Porque Eran Mujeres
Parce qu'elles etaient des femmes
Because they were women
Because they were women
This could have been anywhere
And was
Where she got fired for being too beautiful
Fined for drinking after she was raped
A serious offer to marry her rapist
Got told it was legitimate but not forcible
This could have been anywhere
They do such a thing
When the girls go for fire wood
Step into the lonely man's car
Drink a little too much at the college party
Wake up with her uncle's fingers inside
Run from the screaming machete and guns
Be taken at sunrise
Get a bullet in the brain for learning the alphabet
Be stoned for falling in love
Be burned for seeing the future
I am done
Cataloguing these horrors
Data Porn
2 million women raped and tortured
1 out of 3 women
a woman raped every minute
every second
one out of 2
one out of 5
the same
one
one
one
I am done counting
And recounting
Its time to tell a new story
It needs to be our story
It needs to be outrageous and unexpected
It needs to lose control in the middle
It needs to be sexy and in our hips
And our feet
It needs to be angry and a little scary the way storms can be scary
It needs to not ask permission
Or get permits or set up offices
Or make salaries
It wont be recorded or bought or sold
Or counted
It needs to just happen
It is not a question of inventing
But remembering
Buried under the leaves of trauma and sorrow
Beneath the river of
semen and squalor
vaginas and labias
shredded and extracted
stolen
body mines
mined bodies
It is not about asking now
Or waiting
It is about rising
Raise you arm my sister my brother
Raise your one
Billion
Your one heart
Your one of us
I used to be afraid of love
It hurt too much
What never happened
What got ripped away
The rape
The wound
And love
I thought
was salt
But I was wrong
I was wrong
Step into the fire
Raise your arm
Raise your one
Billion
One
One
One
Rising.
Rising.
Rising.
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