V-Day Blog Archive

Afghan Poet is Killed

Carlotta Gall, The New York Times
KABUL Nadia Anjuman, who had been gaining a name for herself as a poet in Afghan literary circles, died over the weekend in the western city of Herat after being beaten by her husband, police officials said Monday.

The death of Anjuman at age 25 was lamented by colleagues and condemned by the United Nations as an example of the violence that so many Afghan women still face despite their advances four years after Taliban rule.

Anjuman was knocked unconscious by her husband during an argument Saturday evening, Colonel Nisar Ahmad Paikar, chief of the police crime unit in Herat, said in a telephone interview.

Her husband, Farid Ahmad Majid Mia, is in custody and has admitted hitting his wife and knocking her unconscious, Paikar said. Anjuman died later in a hospital, he said, adding that she had a dark bruise under one eye.

Anjuman, a literature undergraduate at Herat University, published her first volume of poems this year, entitled “Gule-Dudi,” or Dark Flower. She was set to publish a second volume next year, said Sayed Haqiqi, a local journalist and colleague of Anjuman’s in Herat’s Cultural Association. Her husband, a graduate in literature at the same university, worked as an administrator on the literature faculty, he said.

A spokesman at the United Nations mission in Kabul, Adrian Edwards, called Anjuman’s death tragic and a great loss to Afghanistan.

“You may recall that on 18 July this year, Yakin Erturk, the UN’s special rapporteur for violence against women, stated here in this room that violence against women remains dramatic in Afghanistan- in its intensity and its pervasiveness,” he said at a news briefing. Her death “needs to be investigated, and anyone found responsible needs to be dealt with in proper accordance with law.”

Other violence continued in Afghanistan on Monday. A suicide bomber blew himself up in an attack outside a provincial government office in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan. The governor survived unharmed, and no one else was injured, local officials said. The bomber appeared to be about 45 and did not appear to be an Afghan, but he died in a hospital without revealing his identity, said the deputy police chief of Helmand Province, Colonel Muhammad Ayub.

Vagina Warrior Agnes Pareyio Named the United Nations in Kenya Person of the Year

Vagina Warrior/Creator of the first V-Day Safe House for the Girls Agnes Pareyio was named the United Nations in Kenya Person of the Year today. Please join us in congratulating Agnes for her amazing achievements and her work to end violence against women in girls.
To read more about the V-Day Safe House in Kenya, which Agnes created, click here.

UN honours Kenyan woman for fight against ‘cut’, early marriages
By Judy Ogutu

The United Nations has honoured a Kenyan for her efforts to save girls from Female Genital Mutilation and early marriages.

Mrs Agnes Pareyio is the United Nations in Kenya Person of the Year, a title she earned for her contribution towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

The recognition coincides with the UN’s 60th anniversary celebrations today.

Pareyio is the co-ordinator of Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative (TNI), a community-based organisation in Narok District.

MDGs are a set of development targets, which all UN member states have pledged to meet by 2015. One of the goals is to promote gender equality and empowerment of women.

TNI has helped girls who have chosen not to undergo circumcision and early marriage, to continue with their education.

Currently, Pareyio is facilitating the design of sustainable mechanisms for eliminating the female rite.

She also provides rehabilitation for FGM victims as well as sensitising and mobilising religious groups to join her crusade.

The former councillor and Maendeleo ya Wanawake branch official started her campaign five years ago.

“She walked from village to village, sensitising the community on the dangers of female circumcision and advocating for an alternative rite of passage,” says a press statement from the UN information office.

Her contributions have led to girls delaying early sexual activity, thus avoiding pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Dr Klaus Toepfer, director-general of UN offices in Nairobi and executive director of Unep, will present Pareyio with a commemorative plaque.

Organization For Women’s Freedom In Iraq Calls For Boycott of Referendum

http://www.equalityiniraq.com

We call all women and freedom-lovers in Iraq to
BOYCOTT THE REFERENDUM
They Deceive Iraqis into Voting Yes for:
A Constitution of Forcing Misogyny and Launching Civil War

Iraqi people will witness on 15-10-05 a new chapter of forced American “Democracy” which aims at manipulating the masses to vote “Yes” for the most dangerous constitution that undermines both the integrity of Iraqi society and women’s civil rights.

The occupation continues to promote for the imposed “democratic” scenario in between their military campaign of mass-killings in Iraqi cities, terrorizing families and children to turn them homeless and helpless. Meanwhile, the political forces which thrived under the occupation tend to deceive the people in their publicity campaigns over the well paid media screens by promising them peace and an end to terrorism if they all vote “Yes” for the constitution. Simultaneously, the clergy support the scenario by encouraging the “yes” vote in their public well-timed announcements.

How is a religious constitution democratic if it denies women the civil and social rights given to men? a constitution which deprives women from equality in matters of marriage and divorce? a constitution that sets the male’s permission as a condition for women’s work and education? Furthermore, a constitution of legalizing the marriage of female children – which is called rape in the civilized world, a constitution which does not recognize the Convention of Ending Discrimination Against Women because it contradicts a doctrine written fifteen hundred years ago. Are they serious at getting the votes of the female majority to laws of their own enslavement and degradation?

Our “No” vote is best represented through boycotting the referendum!
They push us in an endless dark abyss by tearing the Iraqi society apart into nationalist, ethnic, religious and sectarian parts. Furthermore, they are determined to designate ethnic IDs to areas, work places, institutions, legislative and executive assemblies, and moreover to the army, in order to reward legal status to the armed militias of the war lords of the civil war that has already broken out.

This constitution is merely digging landmines that explode and threaten with civil war in a society which is known to be civilized and has no history of falling into pitfalls of ethnic and sectarian bigotry.

We call all women and freedom-lovers in Iraq to boycott the referendum as there is no hope that this farce of “Democracy” at gun point will not have fraud results. Do not believe the lies and deceptions about the “people’s contribution to their constitution”. You need to know that the mere fact of stepping into the referendum poll centers means that you have hope in this process to be expressing people’s free will!

Women in Iraq do not have hopes for freedom and equality as long as the occupation stays and forces a religious and nationalist government on us. A struggle is needed to realize the bright and free life which we deserve – a life unachievable before driving out the occupation and sweeping the religious and nationalist political groups that have stood historically against the aspirations of women and the working class.

No to a constitution of women’s discrimination! We will advance our struggle towards full equality among women and men in a civilized, secular and egalitarian society.

Eve Ensler Open Letter To Kofi Annan

Dear Secretary General Annan,
Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Congo, East Timor, Afghanistan, Peru, Burma, Columbia: the litany of countries where women’s bodies have become the battlefield continues to grow. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 Tutsi women survived rape during the genocide in Rwanda. Between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s. Not until after conflicts end does the world learn of the scale of sexual violence perpetrated against women and girls. Exactly what is it that we learn?

Looking at the situation in Darfur one could surmise that the United Nations has learned nothing. As early as 2003 reports of massive rapes in Darfur were surfacing. In 2004 Amnesty International reported that in a single camp in West Darfur 16 rapes a day were being reported. Mr. Anan, the Report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur to the United Nations was given to you in January 2005. That report characterized the rape in Darfur as “widespread and systematic” and the commission “considered that action must be urgently taken.” Mr. Anan, can you explain to the women and girls of Darfur how the UN defines urgent?

As the UN meets to talk about the situation in Darfur and to listen to the Government of Sudan brazenly deny sexual violence is occurring, women and girls are being raped every day. Hundreds of humanitarian aid workers are currently in Darfur. There has been on average one report a month written about sexual violence since July 2004. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Refugees International and Physicians for Human Rights have all documented sexual violence, arrest and harassment of survivors and denial of health services to survivors.

The United Nations has acknowledged that Human Rights Observers are documenting new cases of rape on a weekly basis. More than $530 million in foreign aid or about $89 per person has been given to address the Darfur crisis. And still rape continues because the political will to stop it is not there. . The UN’s lack of political will means that:

Armed militia waits just outside of the camp knowing that women and girls must leave the camp to collect firewood. All the women can do is go out in groups of 5, 15, 30 and hope this will protect them from being raped. It doesn’t.

A 12 year old girl runs as fast as she can to escape what has become so common place for women and girls in Darfur. She will never be able to run fast enough.

A 50 year old woman is pinned down by 4 attackers and raped until she loses consciousness.

Health workers go on high alert whenever a survivor of sexual violence enters their health clinic. The police can arrive at any time to drag her away to be examined by a government doctor who will deny any evidence of rape.

A girl cries inconsolably because her best friend bled to death after an unsafe abortion. She was pregnant as a result of rape.

A rape survivor, bloody and battered sits in her hut, afraid to go to the health clinic because she might be arrested for adultery.

The purpose of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security. Mr. Anan where is the peace and security for the women and girls of Darfur? There can be no security, no peace, no justice as long as women and girls continue to be raped. Reports of children as young as five being raped have been documented. Mr. Anan where is the outraged voice of UNICEF, the UN Agency that is supposed to be the voice of protection for children around the word. Do the girls of Darfur not count? Why has the UN fallen so silent about sexual violence in Darfur?

Mr. Anan your vision of advancing a larger freedom will never be realized if UN agencies stand by as women and girls are horribly abused. That larger freedom will not be realized if the UN does not put forward the political will to address a complicated and ugly issue that is killing the women and girls of Darfur.

Darfur is the culmination of the UN’s failure to respond quickly and decisively to sexual violence against women and girls. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Anan, silence is collusion. It is the ultimate manifestation that women are worth so little the United Nations, regardless of all their rhetoric to the contrary, turns a blind eye to the widespread and systematic use of rape in Darfur.

That sexual violence in conflict is common does not mean that it is inevitable. Mr. Anan, the UN has the power to make the sexual violence against women and girls stop if it chooses to do so. Darfur could be an example of where the United Nations puts their written commitments, their recommendations and resolutions to protect and empower women and girls into action.

Standing in solidarity with the women and girls in Darfur we are calling for you Mr. Anan to take immediate action to make women and girls safer.

Silence equals collusion Mr. Anan. and right now the UN’s silence is deafening.

– Eve Ensler
Playwright Eve Ensler (The Good Body, The Vagina Monologues) founded V-Day, the global movement to end violence against women and girls.

‘Vagina’ Forum Makes Headway

Mo Yan-chih
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/04/24/2003251752

RAISING AWARENESS: The successful debut of Eve Ensler’s hit play `Vagina Monologues’ has inspired a public discussion on issues of female sexuality

What does the word “vagina” mean to you? Dirty? Shameful? How about charming and beautiful? A forum held yesterday to celebrate the successful debut of an internationally acclaimed play invited people to end violence against women, by loving and respecting a woman’s vagina.

Celebrating the successful debut of The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler’s award-winning play was performed in theaters and on university campuses last month.

The Garden of Hope Foundation and Zonta International held a forum called “Vagina, Valentine, Violence” yesterday.

Famous TV personalities, women’s rights advocates and academics joined together to discuss issues ranging from sexuality, sexual abuse and violence, and to promote “V-Day,” a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

Before the forum, pop star Aya performed a passage from the Vagina Monologues entitled “Because he likes to look at it,” which was based on an interview with a woman who comes to love her vagina because her boyfriend loves the way her vagina looks.

“I think it is important for women to love their bodies and become more conscious of themselves. Talking about what is traditionally deemed taboo and a dirty part of the female body in a positive way can be a good start,” Aya said after reading the excerpt.

Su Tsu-chung, an English professor at the National Chi Nan University, introduced the play to his students and held a performance on campus, and said that students told him the play had raised their consciousness and understanding of women’s bodies by talking about something they are usually ashamed of talking about.

Bih Herng-dar, a member of the gender equality education committee under the ministry of education, said that sex has always been a taboo and something parents never know how to talk about with their kids.

“As a result, our boys turn to pornography for sexual education, and so patriarchal thinking — which objectifies and belittles women — ?will continue to thrive in society,” said Bih, a professor at National Taiwan University.

Lee Kuang-hui, director of the psychiatry department at Peitou Armed Forces Hospital, lauded the play for examining issues of sexuality from the female perspective and called on all men to respect women’s bodies.

“The most important work that can be done to prevent violence and sexual abuse is to educate women what to do in order to prevent rape or harassment,” Lee said.

“We also need to raise men’s awareness and break some deep-seated myths about rape. When women say no to sex, it means no, and men need to learn to control their sexual impulses and instead choose to respect women and their bodies,” he said.

Chief Executive Officer of the foundation Chi Hui-jung said the play provides excellent material on sex education.

“In addition to adding more of the Taiwan experience in the Vagina Monologues, I think it would be wonderful to have the “penis monologue,” which would allow men to share their stories and also raise their consciousness about their own bodies,” Chi said.

The Vagina Monologues is a collection of personal accounts from various women interviewed by Ensler. From the retelling of a rape experience to tips on masturbation, the monologues address serious issues while attacking conventional, often dated, definitions of sexuality.

The play has made a major impact around the world since it was first staged in New York in 1997, and made its debut in Taiwan last month.

Copyright 1999-2005 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.

Update From Vagina Warrior Yanar Mohammed on Recent Developments in Iraqi Constitution

Women in Iraq need you. Condemn a constitution of de-humanizing women.
An era of post-occupation atrocities unfolded to disclose the final chapter of human rights abuse in Iraq: A constitution of legalizing women’s discrimination.

The constitution draft, which was circulated secretly, eliminated the minimal rights women had under the previous 1959 “Personal Status Law.” Although this law was partly based on Islamic Shariaa, it included much reform that secured minimal standards of human rights for women, such as preventing marriage for female children and making polygamy — a practice that is allowed under Shariaa in addition to beatings, stoning, flogging and forced veiling — more difficult for men .

The draft constitution indicates in its article 14 the elimination of the current law and refers family laws completely to Islamic Shariaa and to other religions in Iraq. In other words, it leaves women vulnerable to all inequalities and social hostility in addition to designating females as second rate citizens or semi-humans.

Since the beginning of the occupation, the US administration has recognized Iraqis according to their ethnic/nationalist and religious identities. This predetermined polarization of the society around its most reactionary forces has resulted with a most lethal weapon which is a government of division and inequality – a potential timed bomb for a civil war that has already started. Furthermore, the only mutual agenda for the parties in power is one of oppression, bigotry and misogyny in addition to representing the US occupation interests.

The enemies of the people seated in the panel of writing the constitution have decided to give life to resolution 137. This resolution isolates Iraqis from the modern world and turns Iraq into an Afghanistan under Taliban where oppression and discrimination of women is institutionalized under Shariaa.

We have witnessed stages and kinds of atrocities under this occupation. The time comes for the US occupation to leave an unprecedented hallmark of abusing human rights by forcing a constitution that turns 13 million women into semi-humans.

We need your support in rejecting a constitution that gives way to decades of silent massacres against women.

Let the freedom loving people of the US know what is being committed in their name and in the name of democracy.

Write open letters to the US administration, to its allies, and especially to the UN. Remind them that women’s rights cannot be the price for a hideous democracy of racism, ethnicity, religiosity, sectarianism and misogyny. Help us find a way out of the never ending attack on our freedoms and lives.

Yanar Mohammed
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq
http://www.equalityiniraq.com

Eve Ensler’s “Letter To America” Following The World Tribunal On Iraq

Follow the link to read Eve’s letter:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/eve-ensler/please-dont-go-…

‘V’ Word Leads to Protest at Winona High School

Shannon Fiecke / Lee Newspapers
WINONA, Minn. — As promised, student Carrie Rethlefsen and about 40 peers showed up at Winona Senior High School on Tuesday morning wearing controversial T-shirts that read “I ? MY VAGINA” and “I SUPPORT YOUR VAGINA.”

Holding signs such as “Keep fighting until the violence stops” and “We respect authority,” the group quietly assembled near the school flag pole. There were no speeches — just a one-page print-out explaining their cause, handed to students heading to class.

Shortly before school started, those wearing the banned T-shirts lined up before the front entrance, turning them inside out together. Two seniors — Rethlefesen and Katelyn Delvaux — did wear their “VAGINA” shirts into the school and were sent home for the day.

Students worked with principal Nancy Wondrasch to arrange a protest event that would be acceptable to both parties. Wondrasch said she was proud of how they conducted themselves.

“It went very smoothly,” she said. “We were very pleased.”

Rethlefsen, 18, purchased about 100 T-shirts after school administrators told her she could no longer wear her “I ª my vagina” button to school. Like the T-shirts, proceeds from the button assist abused women. Students say they wore the apparel to create awareness of violence toward women, and support Rethlefsen.

Despite the national attention paid to the issue, many WSHS students paid little attention to the T-shirt crowd before heading into school. Others declined the group’s literature about sexual violence.

Some paused to ask how much a T-shirt cost: $6.

Most who participated in the rally said their parents supported them, others still hadn’t told them.

Genie Adler, 15, suspected she would be grounded, but “it’s worth it,” she said, because she believes in standing up for women’s rights.

Rethlefsen said she believes her point has been heard, and she doesn’t plan to wear her shirt to school again today.

Though it appears the “I ª my vagina” logo is settled for now, Wondrasch said she hopes the issue of women’s rights isn’t.

The principal has talked with students about getting a group started on women’s issues or putting up a table with resource materials in the concourse.

Rethlefsen plans to start a club after she returns from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair later this month.

Tom Jacobs, author of a book for teens called “What Are My Rights?” and a former juvenile court judge, said he is glad to hear the school is attempting to make a compromise.

He said rulings nationwide on T-shirts with slogans have come down on both sides, weighing students’ First Amendment rights against a school’s responsibility to all students.

“(Rethlefsen) has certain rights, and so does the school,” he said. “It’s a balance.”

Referring to the landmark Supreme Court decision, “Tinker v. Des Moines,” Jacobs said students don’t shed their rights at the classroom door.

In the Tinker case, the court upheld students’ right to free speech by wearing black arm bands to protest the Vietnam War.

A message can’t be restricted, but the way it is communicated can, Jacobs said.

For instance, when one female student wore the T-shirt “Drugs Suck,” a court upheld the school’s decision to ban it.

Junior Ashley Atkinson believes the school overreacted to the button issue, but she turned her shirt inside out before entering school.

“They’re giving us this at least,” she said. “In a way, can we ask for more?”

Atkinson hopes to help start a women’s issues club at the high school. She has seen battered women enter the Women’s Resource Center, where she works as a secretary.

“It is kind of an eye-opening experience — the stuff that happens even in this town,” she said.

Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the Minnesota American Civil Liberties Union, said the argument WSHS is making that the button is disruptive to the educational process is a strong one.

“Courts are extremely reluctant to second guess administrators,” he said.

But in this case, students went almost a month before anything was said about Rethlefsen’s button.

“You have to wonder what caused the disruption,” he said, students wearing buttons or the school’s reaction.

Samuelson said the ACLU, “believe(s) this is a quintessential free speech issue, like Tinker vs. Des Moines.”

He said his state organization takes roughly 75 cases a year, filing about a couple dozen, but it’s willing to investigate the Winona incident further, if Rethlefsen cares to pursue it.

Rethlefsen said she talked with Samuelson on Tuesday, but hasn’t decided what route she’ll take.

School board Chairman Larry Laber said if Tuesday was a test of the school’s dress code policy, “the policy passed in flying colors.”

He said he was pleased with how students at the rally behaved and the “adult-like” manner in which Rethlefsen and Delvaux handled themselves.

“My hat is off to them,” he said.

Shannon Fiecke is a reporter for the Winona Daily News. She can be reached at (507) 453-3519 or shannon.fiecke@winonadailynews.com.

Read the story from April 21:
I ? My Vagina, High School Students In Trouble For Wearing Button

I ? My Vagina, High School Students In Trouble For Wearing Button

James Walsh
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5359758.html2

Winona High students put free speech to the test
Two Winona High School students have found themselves in hot water with school officials.

Why? Because after Carrie Rethlefsen attended a performance of the play “The Vagina Monologues” last month, she and Emily Nixon wore buttons to school that read: “I [heart] My Vagina.”

School leaders said that the pin is inappropriate and that the discomfort it causes trumps the girls’ right to free speech. The girls disagree. And despite repeated threats of suspension and expulsion, Rethlefsen has continued to wear her button.

The girls have won support from other students and community members.

More than 100 students have ordered T-shirts bearing “I [heart] My Vagina” for girls and “I Support Your Vagina” for boys.

“We can’t really find out what is inappropriate about it,” Rethlefsen, 18, said of the button she wears to raise awareness about women’s issues. “I don’t think banning things like that is appropriate.”

Their case could become another test of whether high school students have the right to express their views in school. Charles Samuelson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, has offered to help the girls.

“It’s political speech,” he said.

Samuelson acknowledged that school officials can limit speech considered detrimental or dangerous. But he said this case is similar to Tinker v. Des Moines, a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case where students were forbidden to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The court ruled that First Amendment rights are available to teachers and students and that administrators’ fear about how others might react is not enough to squelch those rights.

“Free speech is a messy thing,” Samuelson said. “People need to understand that opinions that they are not comfortable with, or even opinions they disagree with, need to be allowed.”

Good students

To say the girls have never been in trouble at school before is an understatement. They are top students. Rethlefsen was in Minneapolis on Tuesday, presenting her science project on organic farming at General Mills. She has been invited to a prestigious international science and engineering fair for the fourth year in a row.

Nixon, 17, joked that when she was called into the assistant principal’s office about the button issue, he told her: “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

But they’re in trouble now. And it could get worse.

Rethlefsen said school officials first told her the button was inappropriate in mid-March when a school secretary spotted it. That started a string of visits — and debates — with teachers, counselors, an assistant principal and the principal. A teacher barred Rethlefsen from her classroom as long as she wore her button.

“The principal said that by wearing the pin, I was giving people wrong ideas,” Rethlefsen said. “That I was giving an open invitation [to guys].”

The girls said they tried to explain that the buttons are meant to spark discussion about violence against women, about women’s rights. But Principal Nancy Wondrasch said others find the buttons offensive.

“We support free speech,” she said. “But when it does infringe on other people’s rights and our school policies, then we need to take a look at that.”

Wondrasch said she thought they had worked out a compromise with the girls, allowing them to set up a table in the school to discuss women’s issues. But Rethlefsen said school officials are insisting that they review and approve any information the girls want to present.

So they’re turning to the T-shirts, paid for with money collected from friends and supporters. “And we’re going to wear them sometime next week,” Rethlefsen said.

Nixon said more than 100 students are expected to wear the shirts. She added that officials have threatened real consequences if that happens.

“They told us that if a single person showed up wearing them, we’re going to get expelled,” she said. “People are going to wear them anyway.”

Wondrasch wouldn’t comment on what sort of discipline the students might face. But the prospect of expulsion worries Rethlefsen’s mother, Ann.

“She’s a very independent young lady,” Ann Rethlefsen said, adding that she understands the school’s point. “We just want to make sure she graduates.”

Her daughter has gained “a lot of support around town,” she said. She’s even received encouraging e-mails from noted feminist author Susan Faludi.

Nixon is nervous about what could happen next. But the girls say they are taking a stand.

“We’re not trying to offend anyone,” Nixon said. “But I want people to think for themselves and come up with their own conclusions.”

James Walsh is at jwalsh@startribune.com.

Feminists Donate $9,000 to OASIS

Ariel Serafin
After successful sales from the February production of “The Vagina Monologues” and related memorabilia, the UA Network of Feminist Student Activists presented a $9,000 check last week to the OASIS Program for sexual assault and Relationship violence, which assists Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence victims.

The activists also donated $1,000 to the Iraqi Women’s Organization and 1,149 tampons to the Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services, according to a press release by the NFSA.

The proceeds that made the donation possible were provided by two sold-out showings of “The Vagina Monologues,” the “Vagina Warrior” T-shirts, chocolate vagina candies and the pink “V” lapel pins, said Kelly Kraus, the club president and chair of the production committee for “The Vagina Monologues.”

“We wanted to encourage people coming to the show to take further action in supporting women experiencing violence,” she said.

“The Vagina Monologues” and related fundraisers were part of the V-Day campaign, a global movement aimed at fighting violence against females. Choosing the UA’s OASIS Program as the recipient of the large donation seemed natural and appropriate, said Kraus, a political science and women’s studies senior.

“We chose the OASIS Program because it provides an invaluable service to the students, faculty and staff of the UA community who are impacted by sexual assault and relationship violence,” Kraus said.

The Iraqi Women’s Organization also received donations from groups around the world that participated in the V-Day campaign, Kraus said.

“Every year, the V-Day campaign donates 10 percent of the proceeds from every production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ all over the world to a spotlight country,” Kraus said. “This year that country was Iraq.”

The idea for the donation of tampons was sparked by the insights of club members who saw the need for more hygiene products at the Brewster Center Domestic Violence Services, Kraus said.

“Members of our organization work at the Brewster Center Domestic Violence Shelters and told us that because they have a lot of women staying there, they are constantly in need,” Kraus said.

Ana Muniz, a sociology and women’s health sophomore and club member, volunteers at the Brewster Center and said since the center cannot afford to buy everything they need, they rely heavily on public donations.

Julie K. Johnston, program director at the Brewster Center, said people often forget about the importance of basic needs of survivors of domestic violence.

“So many people leave with nothing in the middle of the night,” Johnston said. “Those types of donations (like tampons) are crucial to the work that we do and we couldn’t do it without the community.”

Domestic Violence For information or help, contact the Brewster Center Crisis line at 622-6347