V-Day Blog Archive

CITY OF JOY, a Revolutionary New Center for Congolese Women Survivors of Gender Violence to Hold Opening Celebration Feb 4 & 5

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V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day supporter Charlize Theron, US Ambassador on Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, UN Special Envoy Margot Wallstrom, V-Day Board Member Rosario Dawson, V-Day Supporters Dylan McDermott and Thandie Newton, Congolese Ambassador to the US Faida Mitifu, UNICEF DRC Representative a.i. Philippe Heffinck, AIDS Free World Co-Founder Stephen Lewis, V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver, Panzi Hospital’s Dr. Denis Mukwege to attend opening in Bukavu, DRC

City Of Joy Offers New Platform And Vision For Congolese Women To Pursue Peace In The DRC

What: Fondation Panzi (DRC), women of the Congo, and V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls, with support from UNICEF,will come together to celebrate the opening of the City of Joy, a revolutionary new community where Congolese women survivors of gender violence will have the opportunity to heal and develop their leadership through innovative programming. Through its unique model, conceived, created, and developed by the women on the ground, the City of Joy will provide up to 180 women a year with an opportunity to benefit from group therapy; storytelling; dance; theater; self-defense; comprehensive sexuality education (covering HIV/AIDS, family planning); ecology and horticulture; technology and media; and economic empowerment. During the opening day, an organized summit of Congolese women will present their needs and demands to the world.

Who: V-Day Founder Eve Ensler, UN Messenger of Peace and V-Day supporter Charlize Theron, US Ambassador on Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, UN Special Envoy on Sexual Violence in Conflict Margot Wallstrom, V-Day Board Member Rosario Dawson, V-Day Supporters Dylan McDermott and Thandie Newton, Congolese Ambassador to the US Faida Mitifu, UNICEF DRC Representative a.i. Philippe Heffinck, AIDS Free World Co-Founder Stephen Lewis, V-Day Congo Director/Director of City of Joy Christine Schuler Deschryver, Panzi Hospital’s Dr. Denis Mukwege, among others.

Where: Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo

When: Friday, February 4, 2011

For press inquiries, photos and more information, contact:

Kate Fisher/V-Day, +1 917-291-3081, kate (at) vday.org

Jen Hirsch, Group SJR, +1 646-495-9723, vday (at) groupsjr.com

Why: This global event seeks to bring together grassroots activists, political leaders and stakeholders with residents and staff of City of Joy to create a sustainable path towards the health and empowerment of Congolese women.

The opening of City of Joy marks a momentous phase of V-Day’s STOP RAPING OUR GREATEST RESOURCE: Power To The Women and Girls of the DRC global campaign. Initiated in 2007, the campaign has been raising global awareness about the level of gender violence in the DRC and advocating for change throughout Congo. City of Joy is the beginning of what V-Day believes will be a powerful new platform for Congolese women, from which they can steer Eastern Congo’s destiny towards peace. It is the creation of a new template and vision where women turn their pain to power, restoring their sense of agency over their lives, and connecting them to the continuously expanding and evolving global V-Day movement.

About V-Day: V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. In 2010, over 5,400 V-Day benefit events took place produced by volunteer activists in the U.S. and around the world. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $80 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 12,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic Of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq. In 2001, V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine’s “100 Best Charities,” in 2006 one of Marie Claire Magazine’s Top Ten Charities, and in 2010 was named as one of the Top-Rated organizations on Great Nonprofits. www.vday.org

One Year Anniversary of the Haiti Earthquake: How You Can Help Women in Haiti!

Today, on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake that changed Haiti forever, V-Day remembers those who were lost, and honors those who have worked tirelessly since the devastation to take care of their brothers and sisters and hold their communities together.

We remember with love our sister and V-Day activist Myriam Merlet, one of Haiti and the Caribbean’s most beloved women’s leaders and the Chief of Staff of the Ministry for Women in Haiti. As we forge ahead in our work, we think of her limitless spirit and vision.

Today in Haiti, over 1.3 million are still living in makeshift camps, where women and girls are at high risk of sexual assault. A new report published this week shows that many women and girls are being raped “by armed men and youth gangs roaming the camps after dark.” UNICEF reports that the rape of women and girls in post-earthquake Haiti has reached a four-year high.

V-Day Takes Immediate Action In Response To The Earthquake

In response to the earthquake and the violence that broke out in its wake, V-Day mobilized quickly to help, creating the V-Day Haiti Rescue Fund. V-activists from around the world dug deep and donated funds, which provided emergency support to AFASDA to serve displaced women from Port au Prince who were fleeing to the Northern coast in Cap Haitien. We were also able to provide 40 women and their families with shelter through our partner ShelterBox, which provided 10-person tents to each family, along with a range of other essential emergency equipment. Through this support, V-Day estimates that 400 to 500 individuals were provided with emergency relief.

New V-Day Project Launches in Haiti

We are very excited to report that, under the leadership of longtime V-Day activist Elvire Eugene, V-Day has supported a Task Force made up of local Haitian women’s leaders, co-run by activists Judie C. Roy and Marie Gislhene Mompremier. The Task Force has engaged in a revolutionary long-term V-Day project to establish three safe houses, each with an office of legal assistance for survivors of violence, in Cap-Haitien, Fort Liberte and Port-de-Paix. The group continues to work on the ground to direct and implement efforts to support earthquake survivors and end violence against women and girls, including providing legal support to women at various locations in Port au Prince, and building grassroots support and awareness for the campaign through advocacy efforts like productions of The Vagina Monologues.

V-Day 2011 Spotlight Campaign on the Women and Girls of Haiti – NEW Spotlight Monologue by Eve Ensler

As V-Day is committed to mobilizing its global network to raise awareness and funds for women in Haiti, we are thrilled to have chosen “The Women and Girls of Haiti” as the 2011 Spotlight Campaign. This year during V-Season, activists in over 1,500 locations around the world will present a new monologue written by Eve Ensler, which will raise awareness about the increased violence against women and girls in post-earthquake Haiti, and will raise funds to support V-Day’s efforts on the ground. Opportunities to get involved abound – from holding local V-Day benefits, to sharing a teach-in with your community to raise awareness about the history of Haiti and the needs of women now.

READ Eve’s 2011 Haiti Spotlight Monologue >

Please join us in supporting the extraordinary work of women activists working on the ground in Haiti. Now, more than ever, they need our attention.

How You Can Help Women in Haiti

DONATE to the V-Day Haiti Rescue Fund >

HOST a Haiti Teach-In >

PRODUCE a V-Day Benefit and Spotlight Haiti >

IN HONOR: Myriam Merlet >

Photo Credit: Paula Allen

Eve’s 2011 Haiti Spotlight Monologue – “Myriam Merlet”

English | Creole | Deutsch | Español | Français | Italiano | Suomeksi | 한국어

Myriam Merlet, was an activist and an author. She was chief of staff for the Ministry for Gender and the Rights of Women of Haiti, founded Enfofamn, which collects and promotes women’s stories, fighting for women’s rights through the media. She was extraordinary and beloved and brought V-Day and “The Vagina Monologues” to Haiti. She died in the earthquake.

MYRIAM

Myriam,
Almost a year has passed
since 2010 cracked open at its spine.
A year since I began calling you
calling and calling,
believing the ring
would find you and wake you,
your cell gripped in your buried hand.

A year since
those days of exploding
living rooms and limbs
a blizzard of cement and bone.

Those days of body bags
And not enough body bags
Of silent babies wandering the remains
And mad digging
and sometimes screams, cheers, prayers.

Those days right after
Haiti collapsed
like a house of cards.
You who had been holding it up
Now, suddenly under it.

Myriam,
There are women
in the streets, in cars
In camps, in ragged patchwork tents
Women hardly clothed
Grabbed by hungry, angry men
Filled with babies not their own
There are women who
in order to work
must leave
their daughters,
women with blood on their legs
terrified to take a bath.
There are women waiting to sleep
Waiting for doors and roofs and walls
and
there are women refusing to wait
women calling up your memory
your name.

You worked so hard to change all this
like the biblical prophetess
returned to your land
tambourine in hand
to sing the stories of your women.
You knew the future of Haiti depended on it.

You and Magalie and Ann Marie and all the others
Who broke down the gates
Who changed the street names, packed the courtrooms, made new laws.
Your bodies may be lying
Amidst the steel and dust
But you did not perish there
We are not giving up
We are singing your song
Emboldened by your name
Myriam Myriam Myriam

Eve Ensler
January 2011

Help Haiti Now!

DONATE to the V-Day Haiti Rescue Fund >

HOST a Haiti Teach-In >

PRODUCE a V-Day Benefit and Spotlight Haiti >

WATCH Eve speak about Myriam and Haiti on Democracy Now! >

View Myriam Merlet Photo Gallery >

IN HONOR: Myriam Merlet >

Happy New Year From V-Day!

We hope you will join us in 2011 as we continue to work to end violence
against women and girls throughout the world.

Your Gift Will Turn Pain to Power

Dear V-Friends,

2010 has been an extraordinary year and we at V-Day would like to take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a happy, healthy and peaceful 2011.

In the year ahead, we seek to go even further to continue to do the hard work of ending violence in communities around the world, and to leverage the change we are already actualizing so that we inspire bolder transformation across the planet.

V-Day’s work globally had shown us that in the midst of great trauma is great possibility. As a global activist movement that has raised more than $80 million dollars, V-Day is an unprecedented force with a 12-year track record of successfully catalyzing social change on both a cultural and systematic level.

We believe the work of ending violence against women and girls is critical, and we hope you will stay with us in this effort. With your generous support and commitment, we can turn pain to power.

With V-love from all of us,

Eve, Susan, Amy, Cecile, Christine, Karin, Kate, Laura, Nikki, Purva, Shael, & Tony

It’s Not Too Late! FRIDAY, December 31st Is the Last Day To Make Your 2010 Tax-Deductible Donation >

VIEW V-Day’s 2010 Annual Report: Building the Movement, Building the City of Joy >

A Mother’s Two-Year Crusade Ends in Death

Since 2004, when V-Day’s annual spotlight focused international attention on the Missing and Murdered Women of Ciudad Juarez, V-Day has been working with women and men on the ground who have dedicated their lives to ending the violence that has killed hundreds of women in the last decade. Though there have been examples of triumph in the region, today this story is a heartbreaking reminder of the work the still needs to be done, the attention still needed by the international community, and the impunity and lack of justice that still exists around violence against women cases in Ciudad Juarez, and also throughout the world.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870381480457603579141928424…

By DAVID LUHNOW

MEXICO CITY–The murder of a mother who spent two years trying to bring to justice the killer of her 16-year-old daughter has struck a nerve in Mexico, casting a harsh light on the country’s dysfunctional judicial system.

Marisela Escobedo, 52, was a largely unknown figure until last week, when a man shot her in the head in front of the governor’s office building in the capital of Chihuahua, a northern border state known for its drug-related violence. Weeks earlier, Ms. Escobedo had begun a sit-in across the street, refusing to leave until officials arrested her daughter’s confessed killer.

The brazen killing of Ms. Escobedo yards away from the governor’s office stunned many Mexicans. President Felipe Calderon and the United Nations condemned the murder and called on Chihuahua state officials to clear up the crime. On Wednesday, several hundred protesters held a silent march in Ciudad Juarez, where Ms. Escobedo was from.

“People are angry about this case. It’s bringing people together to demand change,” said Father Oscar Enriquez, a Catholic priest and the director of a human-rights center in Ciudad Juarez.

Ms. Escobedo’s saga stands as a sad indictment of Mexico’s law-enforcement system. In August 2008, her daughter, Rubi Marisol, disappeared from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s most violent city. Police suspicion fell on her live-in boyfriend, Sergio Barraza, who had fathered a baby girl with Rubi. Mr. Barraza then fled, police said.

Fed up with waiting for police and prosecutors to solve the case, Ms. Escobedo, a retired nurse, did the detective work herself, tracking down Mr. Barraza and leading police to his capture nearly a year later in nearby Zacatecas state.

Mr. Barraza confessed to killing Rubi and led police to her body, which he had burned and then buried near a pig slaughterhouse.

At Mr. Barraza’s trial in April of this year, however, a panel of three judges released him, arguing there wasn’t enough evidence against him and blaming prosecutors for putting together a sloppy case. An enraged Ms. Escobedo launched a one-woman crusade to bring Mr. Barraza to justice, holding protests from Ciudad Juarez to Mexico City.

In May, an appeals court overturned the lower-court decision to release him. The appeals court convicted Mr. Barraza in absentia of Rubi’s murder, and sentenced him to 50 years in jail. But by then, he had fled again.

Over the summer, Ms. Escobedo again tracked down Mr. Barraza. Local newspaper reports said neighbors saw him running away over a rooftop just as the police arrived.

In a bid to pressure authorities, the grieving mother began her sit-in a few weeks ago. “I’m not leaving until they arrest that killer,” she told media at the time. She said she had received death threats from Mr. Barraza’s family. The government offered a reward for his capture.

Last week, as the sun set on the state capital, security cameras captured the scene as a gunman approached Ms. Escobedo, who fled across the street toward the governor’s office. The man gave chase and fired, and her body crumbled to the sidewalk. Among the witnesses: Rubi’s infant girl.

The footage of the killing was repeated on nightly newscasts across Mexico, where the mother’s role is seen as sacrosanct and Mother’s Day is a major national holiday.

The day after Ms. Escobedo was killed, her brother-in-law, Manuel Monje, was picked up by unidentified men at a lumberyard he runs with his brother, Marisela’s husband. His body was dumped from a moving car along a Ciudad Juarez boulevard on Saturday, witnesses and police said.

The chances of identifying and capturing the killers of the three Escobedo family members are slim. Only 2% of those who commit crimes in Mexico are brought to justice, according to several academic and government estimates. That impunity has fanned violence in Ciudad Juarez, where 3,000 people have been killed this year alone–many by drug cartels fighting for lucrative smuggling routes to the U.S. Last year, prosecutors in Juarez won 19 convictions for murder; there were 2,600 murders in the city that year, according to data from the government that were published by the Associated Press.

After Ms. Escobedo’s killing, Chihuahua state Gov. Cesar Duarte ordered that the three judges who initially released Mr. Barraza be stripped of their jobs. Activists criticized the governor for ordering the move after Ms. Escobedo was killed and not after the decision to let Mr. Barraza go. The governor hasn’t directly responded to the criticism, but has said authorities have tried hard to catch Mr. Barraza, whom the governor said is believed to be a member of the Zetas cartel, one of the country’s most violent.

This week, the Sinaloa cartel offered its services in tracking down the killers. In two hand-painted banners displayed in Ciudad Juarez, one in front of a public hospital, the cartel offered its condolences to Ms. Escobedo’s family and urged residents to come forward with information, even giving out a webpage.

V-Day Update from Lima, Peru

Over the Thanksgiving week, we had the privilege of seeing V-Day activists in action as we traveled to Lima, the bustling South American city perched on the Pacific Ocean that is the cultural and economic center of Peru. We have visited activists the world over – from Iceland to Ohio, Rhode Island to the Philippines, Kenya to Paris, and our experience in Lima was no different. We were left with familiar feelings – amazement, excitement and awe!

The strategic headquarters for VPerú was La Casona VPerú, in Miraflores – or as we named it ‘The Pink House’ – where at any time day or night you could expect to find the Director of VPerú, Vanessa Oniboni, her husband and V-Man extraordinaire Oliver Luker, and an assorted gathering of their V-team of over 50 volunteers. The house, which had been donated to VPerú before it is torn down to make way for a loft building, was painted in hot pink paint, its entrance draped with a huge VPerú sign, and an entrance wall plastered with vagina art. On Tuesday, the house was transformed into venue for a VPerú art installation. Artists were invited to create art addressing the topic of violence against women and women’s empowerment. Opening night of the art exhibit saw La Casona packed with hundreds of people who came to see the photography, video installations, performance art, prints, drawings, paintings, and sculptures that the amazing VPerú artists had created for this special night. Among our favorites were a huge neon vagina cut out of the wall and a series of portraits of women activists carved directly into the quincha walls. All of it was a testament to art’s ability to move hearts and minds.

Vanessa and her team planned an incredible week of events to bring V-Day to Lima and we spent a busy week racing around the city with many of the extraordinary young women and men who, moved by V-Day’s message, had volunteered their time to igniting the V-Day movement in Lima – working hard for months to bring the VPerú events to fruition. Their hard work was evident in so many ways. The city was saturated with the VPerú message – bus stop signs and posters covered the city, coverage of VPerú ran on the morning television shows and on the front page of the country’s most popular magazine, Caretas as well as in numerous other print and online publications. Another huge accomplishment was the deep and serious engagement of young people and men in VPerú – we were very inspired to see them take hold of V-Day and run with it.

The centerpiece of the week’s events was the gala performance of The Vagina Monologues at the Teatro Segura in downtown Lima, directed by one of Peru’s most cherished actors, Norma Martínez. It was an electrifying night. The theater was lit up outside in pink lights, and the buzz of a full house (800 seats) was exhilarating. The cast included all of Peru’s leading ladies: Ana Cecilia Natteri, Ana Sofía Toguchi, Attilia Boschetti, Betina Onetto, Denisse Dibós, Denise Arregui, Ebelin Ortiz, Elva Alcandré, Gisela Ponce de León, Gisela Valcárcel, Magdyel Ugaz, Melania Urbina, Milena Alva, Mónica Sánchez, Nidia Bermejo, Stephanie Orúe and Yvonne Frayssinet. The performance was amazing – and as many of you all know the moment the audience joins in to chant CUNT! you realize that you have reached them all at their centers. It was no different this performance – the lights went on and the entire audience chanted “Concha! Concha! Concha!” A video message from a sorely-missed Eve ran before the performance, as well as a VPerú produced PSA which had sparked huge public interest on its release 10 days before. After the performance there was a fun cocktail reception which the press loved, enabling Vanessa and her team to relay the message of VPerú and to talk about the evening’s beneficiary RECARE (more about them later) to the top-most journalists in the country.

There were so many more amazing moments:

• Panel discussions about breaking down machismo and the role of women in Peruvian society at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano among a number of other panels that were held

On our last day, we had the great privilege of visiting two safe houses that are part of RECARE, a network of 16 small, humble safe houses in and around Lima. The first house we visited was in Puente Piedra, about two hours north of Lima. We were very moved to meet the women and children living there and to learn about their personal stories. They told us about how RECARE helps them to pursue their cases in the police and judicial systems while also providing essential shelter, food and safety.

The second safe house we visited was in Cercado de Lima, closer to the center of town. We were thrilled to meet Rosa Morales, the 69-year-old founder of RECARE, there. The minute we met Rosa we knew she was a Vagina Warrior – she just has that aura. Rosa’s story is incredible. As a child she was left to look after herself in the Andes region where she was born. She made her way to Lima as a young woman to reconnect with her mother, who left her a small house when she died. Rosa turned the house into Peru’s first safe house, and from it RECARE was born in 1982.

Rosa’s heart is so huge. You could feel her love and the many years of wisdom she has gathered through the hard work she has done. It was a gift to meet her. We took her back to the Pink House to show her her portrait, chiseled into the wall. As she looked at it and took it in, she was overwhelmed with tears, and so were we.

For both of us, the experience of being part of VPerú’s inaugural activities was a reminder of the power of V-Day’s activists to change lives, to transform minds, and to touch hearts. Seeing our activists in action, seeing the emotion on the audience’s faces in the Teatro Segura, seeing what a small group of people could accomplish in such a short amount of time reminded us that the V-Day movement is alive, and thriving.

We believe this is just the beginning for V-Day in Peru, and throughout South America.

With V-Love,

Purva Panday Director, Programs & Development

Cecile Lipworth Managing Director, Campaigns & Development

Feminist.com Celebrates 15-Year Anniversary!

On December 3, Feminist.com, a thriving online community fostering awareness, education, and activism for women all across the world, celebrated it’s 15-year anniversary and launched Feminist.com Executive Director Marianne Schnall’s book, Daring to Be Ourselves: Influential Women Share Insights on Courage, Happiness and Finding Your Own Voice.

The anniversary event, which took place at New York City’s Idlewild bookstore, featured V-Day Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler, along with fellow Feminist.com supporter Gloria Steinem and members of the Feminist.com board and advisory board and many longtime friends, supporters, and colleagues.

V-Day would like to congratulate Feminist.com and Marianne on 15 incredible years of empowering, educating and connecting feminists throughout the world.

WATCH Feminist.com Anniversary >

Give to V-Day, Build the Movement: A Message from Eve & V-Day’s 2010 Annual Report

Dear V-Friends, V-Activists & V-Supporters:

Happy Holidays!

I am so proud to send you our 2010 Annual Report, Building the Movement, Building the City of Joy, which is an overview of the last year at V-Day. This year, we have “gone green” and opted to present our Annual Report digitally in an effort save resources.

CLICK HERE for the 2010 Annual Report, Building the Movement, Building the City of Joy >

V-Day is an unprecedented force with a 13-year track record. An empowerment philanthropy and unrivaled public awareness engine, V-Day provides women and men with the tools to raise funds and awareness about violence in their own communities, all the while unearthing the most promising solutions to keep women and girls safe. Despite the fact that V-Day is run by a small team of only 12 staff, we are a powerful modern-day movement fueled by the thousands of friends, activists and supporters like you who continue to ignite grassroots activism across 140 countries, changing the global discourse about violence across continents.

In the past year, V-Day once again mobilized thousands of activists, stakeholders, politicians and supporters around the world to keep a sharp and steady focus on the epidemic of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In February, we will open the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for survivors of sexual violence in Bukavu. We are beyond thrilled to finally be at this important juncture in V-Day’s work, as we know that the City of Joy will serve as a model for groundbreaking and transformative work in other parts of the world where women and girls are being violated.

In the year ahead, we seek to go even further than we have to date – to continue to do the hard work of ending violence in communities, and to leverage the change we are already actualizing so that we inspire bolder transformation across the planet. In particular, we will spotlight the women and girls of Haiti, who are experiencing high levels of violence since the January 2010 earthquake. I invite you to join us in this work.

V-Day thrives because of the help of visionary supporters like you who, each year, give generously to our critical work. I hope that when you read about the many victories we have had over the past year, and our ambitious plans for 2011, you will feel compelled to once again open your hearts and support us.

We need you now more than ever.

With my deepest gratitude and New Year’s wishes,

Eve Ensler

CLICK HERE for the 2010 Annual Report, Building the Movement, Building the City of Joy >

DONATE to V-Day* >

*December 31st is the last day to make charitable donations in order to claim them on your 2010 tax return. 86 cents of every dollar you give goes to ending violence against women and girls.

READ Eve’s Op Ed in “The Guardian” for World AIDS Day

Nothing Short Of A Sexual Revolution
By EVE ENSLER

Vagina is the most terrifying word, the most threatening word, in any language of any country I have ever been to. Even when the vagina is worshipped in theory, as the yoni is in India, it is denigrated in practice. It is more reviled and feared than words like plutonium, genocide and starvation. In many countries the word for female genitalia is so derogative or disgusting, it cannot be spoken in public. In a few places, there is no word in the language for vagina at all.

As the vagina is the primary port of transmission from men to women of the Aids virus, how women and men perceive vaginas, talk about or don’t talk about vaginas, how women know their vaginas, feel agency over their vaginas, determines everything about their future. Many women, even in so-called progressive countries, are still not comfortable asking a man out, acting directly on their own desire, be it for a man or a woman. Many women who are sexually active and educated about the virus are still, because of insecurity and embarrassment, having unsafe sex. Many women in the year 2010 do not know how their clitoris functions or how to give themselves pleasure, nor do they feel safe telling a partner or a husband what they need or that it hurts when they are entered without preparation or that it would all work much better if it happened slower.

For so many women in the world, because there is no open sex education, because women are discouraged from masturbation, because sex has been defined – like science or maths or business or politics – as something essentially male and belonging to men, sex is perceived as something foreign and inaccessible. Because women are regularly forced and taken against their will in parts of the world, sex has become associated with pain. It has become something you survive. Each year millions of women forcibly have their clitoris cut and removed. For many women, your vagina belongs to the clan, to the tribe, to the state, to the church, to the mosque, to the temple, to your husband. But it most certainly does not belong to you. So if it isn’t yours, how do you protect it or cherish it?

You cannot prevent women from getting Aids without ending violence towards them, without shifting the dynamics of power. You cannot stop a disease that is being transmitted through sex unless you admit that sex exists, unless women have a right to sex and desire – the same way men have a right – unless women are equal active participants and not passive recipients of men’s desires and thus the diseases men pass on through their narcissistic ejaculations. Until women know they have a right to refuse to be touched or entered and a right to invite it, a right to demand protection and a right to expect it, there will be no ending Aids. And until these rights are backed up by courts and enforced by states, women will never have those rights.

A man can get away with raping a virgin and saying he believes it will cure Aids, as long as there is a sanctioned and enforced environment of sexual ignorance. Creating a true and substantial dialogue about sex and sexuality means breaking taboos and asking questions. It means standing up to authorities like the church, which refuse to promote contraception and sex education. It means boldly speaking out against fundamentalist forces that promote abstinence, claiming it prevents Aids and STDs and early pregnancy when the data tells another story.

Frankly, nothing short of a worldwide sexual revolution will stop the spread of Aids. We need to dissemble the shame, reclaim pleasure, celebrate desire, human connection, skin and touch. We need to release the shackles of oppression, one-way enjoyment and narrow-minded education. We need open and fearless discussion allowing sex to be what it is – natural and beautiful.

The revolution will not happen without men. We need to create an environment where sexuality is more about connection than conquering, more about pleasure than performance. Men need to ask questions, and admit their vulnerabilities. They need to go slow and go deeper. Women need to expect this, demand it and allow a place for it.

The time is now. There are 33 million people living in the world with the HIV virus, about half of them women. I venture to say a good portion of them got the disease because there is no environment which supports them saying outright and directly, “Love my vagina”.