Eve Ensler and VDay

Video interview 27 August 07

Eve Ensler, the author of The Vagina Monologues, is campaigning for an end to violence against women and girls. Her VDAY website is calling on people (women, presumably) to host a 2009 V-Day event in their college, high school or community.

Here is an excerpt from the message Ensler posted on her website in September. Posting it here seems like a good way to raise awareness of a situation that hasn't gone away this year and is bound to extend into the next and beyond, if nothing is done to stop it.

Breaking the Silence in Bukavu

I urge you to read everything you can about the DRC (please see our resources page). I urge you to fight with all your heart and to find your connection to the women of the DRC as you have found your connection to the women of New Orleans and Iraq and Juarez and Afghanistan, and the other places V-Day brings us. It is in our connection and solidarity that we will find our freedom and power. The Congo is the heart of Africa and Africa is, in many ways, the heart of the world. What happens to the women here affects the flow of life throughout the planet. When we find the way (and we will) to end the violence here we will have created a template and a vision that can be transferred and used everywhere.

I encourage you to break the silence as the women in Goma and Bukavu have done. Remember that the shame of being raped is not ours, but that of the perpetrators. Remember that when we speak the truth, we free everyone to do the same.

You are always with me.

With V-Love,

Eve

September, 2008
Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo