V-Day, the worldwide movement to end violence against women and girls, joins Equality Now in calling for the immediate retraction of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) new policy statement entitled “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors.” This new policy advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick'”, which would include making an incision to a girl’s clitoris.
By effectively supporting the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the AAP’s policy is in direct conflict with its previous stance on FGM, and the stance of many groups around the world, including The World Health Organization and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, who have unequivocally opposed the practice as “medically unnecessary” and a human rights violation. Eve Ensler, V-Day’s founder, echoes this sentiment, stating in New York this week, “Women and girls’ bodies are theirs, and theirs alone. Any threat to their autonomy over their bodies, the most sacred of all domains, is unjust. It is a travesty that part of the American medical community is sanctioning human rights violations.”
V-Day is shocked and deeply troubled by this policy, which jeopardizes decades of work by activists around the world to eradicate the deadly practice of FGM. For eleven years, V-Day has worked to assist activists on the ground to end FGM and has seen first hand the physical and psychological effects of the ritual on women and girls. By encouraging any type of incision, cut or “nick” on girls’ genitalia, the AAP is compromising the health and future of hundreds of thousands of girls around the world.
AAP’s new stance is also ignoring evidence that alternative rituals to FGM are becoming increasingly accepted in even the most remote locations and within the most traditional cultures, as evidenced by the work of V-Day Kenya Director Agnes Parayio. Since 2001, Agnes has successfully provided a safe haven for girls escaping FGM and early marriage at two V-Day Safe Houses in Narok and Sakutiek, Kenya. These houses are a place where young women can safely celebrate an alternative “rite of passage,” enabling Masai women to follow their tradition without undergoing the cut. Through this bloodless new custom and continued education for the girls and their families, V-Day has been honored to witness the widening denunciation of FGM within the traditional Masai culture. We remain confident that through education and the creation of alternative, safe rituals, FGM can become a thing of the past, regardless of location, custom or religious belief.
V-Day continues to stand in solidarity with the brave women and girls around the world who have dedicated their lives to ending FGM in all it’s forms by calling for the retraction of the AAP’s “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors” policy statement, which promotes changes in U.S. federal and state laws to enable physicians to “nick” girls’ genitalia. V-Day will continue to work with our friends and activists around the world, until the violence stops.
JOIN V-DAY & EQUALITY NOW! TAKE ACTION!
Write to the American Academy of Pediatrics, asking it to retract portions of the AAP Statement. Urge the Academy to abide by the principles of gender equality in its practice and to recognize that human rights are universal and indivisible.
Write to:
Errol R. Alden, M.D. FAAP, Executive Director/CEO, American Academy of Pediatrics
141 Northwest Point Blvd, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007-1019
E-mail: ealden@aap.org, Phone: (847) 434-7500, Fax: (847) 434-8385
Please send copies of your letters to the American Board of Medical Specialties and the American Board of Pediatrics at the addresses listed below:
Kevin B. Weiss, M.D., MPH, President and CEO, American Board of Medical Specialties, 222 North LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60601
E-mail: kweiss@abms.org, Phone: (312) 436-2600, Fax: (312) 436-2700
Alan R. Cohen, MD, Chair, The American Board of Pediatrics,111 Silver Cedar Court, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
E-mail: abpeds@abpeds.org, Phone: (919) 929-0461, Fax: (919) 913-2070
Please also ask your own doctor to take action on this issue.
Please keep V-Day and Equality Now updated on your work and send copies of any replies you receive to: info@vday.org & info@equalitynow.org
V-Day distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls around the world. Violence against women affects one in three women in the U.S. and the world, your tax deductible donation of $25, $50, $100, $500, or more will help V-Day end violence against women!
The French postal service, La Poste, has just released a specially designed and dedicated booklet of 12 postage stamps, focusing on the issue of violence against women and girls and V-Day’s efforts to end it.
This unique booklet incorporates beautiful images of V-Day’s work as seen through the lens of renowned photographers Paula Allen, Catherine Cabrol, Stephan Gladieu and Scarlett Coten. The stamps will increase awareness about violence against women and girls in France and around the world.
Mu Sochua, a Cambodian politician, activist and Nobel Prize nominee is nominated for the Global Exchange People’s Choice Human Rights Award, the recipient of which will receive $1,000 towards their work. Your vote will help this brave and inspirational leader continue to further women’s rights in Cambodia and to end sex slavery.
Mu Sochua founded the first women’s organization in Cambodia, Khemar, and in 1998 became the first woman ever to be elected into Parliament and hold a seat in the Women’s Affairs Ministry. Mu Sochua has worked extensively to end sex slavery, including negotiating an agreement with Thailand allowing Cambodian women trafficked as sex workers to return to their home country instead of being jailed. She was nominated for a Nobel Prize for her work against sex trafficking of women in 2005.
Some made music, some made noise, all made a difference. We celebrate 125 women who, during the past 125 years, broke records, broke ground, blazed trails, and suffered trials, shattering ceilings of glass and even tougher stuff. While some are obvious choices and some obscure, all acted to increase our liberty, safety, and prosperity. One of them makes the best lemon meringue pie ever. We honor these matron saints whose work continues to bring pleasure, save lives, and widen the scope of little girls’ dreams.
Eve Ensler
1953-
PLAYWRIGHT, PERFORMER, AND ACTIVIST
The creator of The Vagina Monologues has raised consciousness — and, through her V-Day organization, more than $75 million for global programs working to end violence against women and girls. A current focus: the Democratic Republic of Congo, the most dangerous place in the world to be female.
Two weeks ago, performances of The Vagina Monologues were held in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. The events, organized by V-Day Congo Director Christine Schuler Deschryver, brought hundreds of women and men together and raised significant awareness for V-Day’s Congo Campaign, Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power to the Women and Girls of the DRC. Following is Christine’s first hand account of the events:
Being born from a very conservative Congolese mother who never talked about “this place” with us, I hardly imagined that the word “vagina” could be pronounced in public until last June when we performed Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues in the capital city of Kinshasa, DRC for the first time. I have to say that when people saw the invitations, they were shocked! That evening however, more than 200 people came to the performance, including lots of government officials (advisers of President Kabila, Ministers, Senators, Deputies), high profile UN officials, wives of Ambassadors, activists, as well as everyday citizens, all of whom we saw crying and laughing throughout the play. That some deputies asked us to perform at the Congolese Parliament created a huge discussion and awareness raising opportunity about the issue of violence against women in the DRC.
Based on the success of the June performance, in January 2010 we decided to bring The Vagina Monologues to different cities in DRC. On March 31st, we performed in Goma (the capital of North Kivu), targeting officials, UN agencies, national and international NGOs, and activists. More than 250 people attended, including Ministers, the President of Provincial Assembly, along with dozens of deputies, General Bisengimana, the number two national level of Police, and more. The actresses, all local Congolese women, were amazing and the event was a success.
Following the performance the reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
The target of the second performance was students. The event was an open-air performance during the rainy season! Just imagine all the technical problems, a stand, microphones, generator, chairs etc… so we were all a little bit nervous. What a surprise to see that the majority of the audience was men. Esther, our Campaign Coordinator, stopped counting at 350 people, and I can tell you, that they all stayed till the end, laughed so much and at the end two presidents from two colleges asked us to use The Vagina Monologues as a tool to raise awareness about rape and to join our Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource: Power To The Women and Girls of the DRC Congo campaign.
What is really incredible is the discussion around vaginas that took place after the performance. Never forget that due to “our culture”, we were not allowed to talk about vaginas, also never forget how they destroy, mutilate, rape this hidden place. Today, seeing my mamas throughout the country talking so openly about it makes me feel that the V-Revolution has started.
Writer of the groundbreaking Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler has been a strident voice for women and girls across the globe for over a decade. In this talk with author Daniel Handler, she discusses daily struggles faced by modern women everywhere.
These last few months I have been on the road traveling with V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls. I have visited colleges, safe houses, after school programs, and orphanages. I have been in war zones, cities and in the fields. The whole time, I have been listening to girls.
In Mumbai I meet Priya, eighteen, who stands up and asks out loud in a college hall full of men and women, Why are boys heroes when they have sex with different girls and girls who do the same thing considered sluts? Her bravery and outspokenness allows other girls to speak out and a fiery discourse that unleashes secrets, anger and desire for liberation follows.
I meet J.D., fifteen, on the lower east side in New York City, who was raped when she was eleven and has been cutting herself, and who decides, through the course of a rehearsal for a play, that words might be a better way to direct her sorrow and rage; suddenly she is writing poems that fly off the page.
In Rawalpindi, there is Abaaz, who was forced to marry at thirteen, had a baby when she was fourteen. After her husband abused her for several years he took another wife and kicked her out into the streets. To survive, she decided to live as a man, changing her clothes, deepening her voice and opening a vegetable stand. She is now able to support herself and her child. When I meet her, she and her son are wearing matching gray suits. She tells she longs one day to wear her beloved scarf and live as a woman.
There is Helene who is seventeen, raped by the militias in Bukavu, after they killed her six brothers and sisters and raped her mother. She gave birth to a little girl who is a daily reminder of that rape. But she defies that story by the love and kindness she pours into her daughter, who is now smart as a whip and in spite of their difficult circumstances, beaming with happiness.
Each of these girls lives in a culture or a family that has robbed her of choice, control over her body and power. Each girl has been humiliated or shamed or defiled. Each girl has been made to feel less and alone. And each girl has dug into herself and found her resilience, her inventiveness, her brilliance, her bravery and kindness.
For over a decade, I have had the good fortune to travel around the world. Everywhere I have met teenage girls, circles of girls, packs of girls, arm in arm, laughing, giggling, screaming. Electric girls, defying the odds. These girls are what inspired me to write I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World. I have seen how girls’ lives get hijacked, how their opinions and desires get denied and undone. I see, too, how this later comes to determine so much of our lives as adults. So many of the women I have met through The Vagina Monologues and V-Day are still trying to overcome what was muted or undone in them when they were young. They are struggling late into their lives to know their desires, to find their power and their way.
So the call to girls is to question rather than to please. To provoke, to challenge, to dare, to satisfy their own imagination and appetite. To know themselves truly. To take responsibility for who they are, to engage. It’s a call to their original girl-self, to their emotional-creature-self, to move at their own speed, to walk with their step, to wear their color. It is an invitation to heed their instinct to resist war, or draw snakes, or to speak to the stars.
In Tim Burton’s recent film Alice in Wonderland, I think it is the Mad Hatter who tells Alice that when she was younger she had more of her “muchness.” I think whatever country or town or village girls physically live in they inhabit a similar emotional landscape. They all come from girl-land. There, they get born with this “muchness” or awakeness, this open hearted-have-to-eat-it- taste-it-know-it-defy-it. Then the “grown ups” come with their rules, their directions. They convince girls that they are too much – too intense, too emotional, too dramatic, too alive, too, too too. They teach girls how to make themselves less so everyone feels more comfortable. They get girls to obey and behave.
Here’s what I’m telling you (from the Manifesta To Young Women and Girls in I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World):
Everyone’s making everything up
There is no one in charge except for those
Who pretend to be
No one is coming
No one is going to
Rescue you
Mind read your needs
Know your body better than you
Always fight back
Ask for it
Say you want it
Cherish your solitude
Take trains by yourself to places
You have never been
Sleep out alone under the stars
Learn how to drive a stick shift
Go so far away that you stop being afraid of
Not coming back
Say no when you don’t want to do something
Say yes if your instincts are strong
Even if everyone around you disagrees
Decide whether you want to be liked or admired
Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out
What you’re doing here
Believe in kissing.
Eve Ensler, a playwright and activist, is the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. Her newest work I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World was just published by Random House in the U.S. For V-Day events near you, see www.vday.org.
On March 8, International Women’s Day, The Huffington Post featured eleven women who they believe are “essential voices for positive change.” V-Day is pleased to announce that V-Day Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler has been honored with this distinction for her work to end violence against women and girls worldwide.
At What Point Does One Lose One’s Humanity?
By Charlize Theron
I have been incredibly blessed in my life to be able to travel. Seeing the world and its diversity first hand has been the greatest teacher, and never have I learned a more difficult lesson then when I visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2009. The DRC, bordered by nine different countries, is home to over 200 ethnic groups, making it literally the heart of Africa. This country is in a state of emergency. Various militias and complicated politics all play a part in the devastation of the land and the population, but no one is suffering more than the women and young girls. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been beaten, tortured and raped—atrocities beyond anything that I have ever heard of or could imagine.
During my visit to the DRC, I visited Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a city on the eastern border that is known for being one of the hardest hit by this plague of sexual violence. The hospital is one of the only safe havens for victims, and the principal doctor, Dr. Mukwege, is one of the people closest to being a saint that I have ever met. Beyond standard medical and psychological treatments for victims, the hospital performs surgical repairs for women who suffer from fistulas in their vagina or rectum. The surgery is literally a miracle for these women and girls who could otherwise be permanently incontinent, as well as suffer from chronic infections. The fistulas that the hospital treats are normally the result of not simply violent or numerous rapes, but more commonly from a deliberate infliction of damage to the genitalia, from sharp objects, knives or gun shots. The idea behind this brutality is to completely humiliate and breakdown families, as well as entire communities—a violence which seems to know no limits.
After such abuse, bodies and minds will never be the same. It is moments like these when I question how is it possible for one human to commit such an act against another, and at what point does one lose one’s humanity? I found myself then wondering how can you ever expect these women to trust again, especially when they return to their families only to be shunned and cast out? Where are they to turn? Even if their physical wounds are able to heal, they become debilitated without the support of a family or a community and without skills or resources so many women have absolutely no means to support themselves. At times the problem seems overwhelming—too large to fix.
At the headquarters of the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I had the opportunity to meet with a group of women who work with non-governmental organizations in Bukavu. Listening to these women broke my heart. One woman made the statement that they want to fight—they want change and hope, but have no idea who to turn to anymore. They felt that they could trust no one, they felt alone and helpless. I understood what they meant. Just ¬listening to them talk about their situation, it was hard not to feel as she did, helpless.
For a problem so big and so complicated, where do you begin? What I have found and what I believe is that you begin somewhere, anywhere, but you must begin. You must act. As you read this, consider your humanity. Consider for one moment if you or your sister, your mother or your daughter lived in such a dire situation—then act. There are overarching problems that our generation may not ever be able to change, but there are also women suffering here and now. These women need us and we have the capacity to change their lives.
In Bukavu, I saw in action the change that can be made when I met Christine Schuler Deschryver and learned about her work with V-Day.
V-Day defines itself as a global movement to end violence against women and girls. They work around the world building support, speaking out, educating, collaborating with local organizations and inspiring men and women to stop the violence. Christine has devoted her life to helping the women and girls of the DRC, and when we met, she and the V-Day team were hard at work creating the City of Joy project in Bukavu. The City of Joy is a unique facility for survivors of sexual violence. It will support these women by helping them heal, and provide them with opportunities to develop their self-sustainability and leadership through programmes such as group therapy, dance, sexual education, self-defence, and economic empowerment. Seeing the land where this project would be built, and hearing the plans, I knew that this is an act that will make a difference.
I urge you to please educate yourself about the situation of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and support the work of the Panzi Hospital and V-Day. I can vouch for these organizations, and promise your support will be nothing short of life saving.
What does it mean if there is one more hospital bed that can comfort a woman who has just dragged herself miles to reach aid? What does it mean to the 13 year-old who does not get raped? What does it mean when she can trust a man and raise a child to believe that people—both men and women—can be good?
125 Women Who Changed Our World
1953-
