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- From: nyt%nyxfer%igc.apc.org@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu (NY Transfer News)
- Subject: UK: Women March Against Violence
- Message-ID: <1992Dec25.082423.7928@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 08:24:23 GMT
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- Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit
-
- from the European Counter Network (ECN) London
-
- 15 December 1992
-
- THE WOMEN ARE MARCHING
-
- November 25th is the International Day to End Violence Against
- Women. In Britain, on Saturday 28th, women marched
- to Trafalgar Square in London to protest against the global
- attacks on women's rights and bodies. The numbers started at
- around 2000 but swelled to 4000 as women joined the march.
-
- In the square, speakers were hampered by the fact that the
- Department of the Environment (the government department
- responsible for Trafalgar Square) would not allow the
- electricity to be switched on. Thus the speakers, from a diverse
- number of groups, organisations and campaigns, were forced to
- shout into a megaphone. A woman speaker from Yugoslavia
- was visibly distressed s she was forced to shout atrocities
- inflicted on women in the war, into a crowd that still could not
- hear her.
-
- Violence against women is global. It ranges from domestic
- violence to the international sex trade, to imperialism such as
- the British occupation of Northern Ireland, to pornography, to
- the new colonialism, to the physical and political violation
- that is the 'disabled health service', to female genital
- mutilation.
-
- As all these women, from all these internationally focused
- campaigns, spoke of struggle and resistance to a cheering
- audience, it was impossible not to realise that women must
- stand up and link across the world. Isolated, we fight alone,
- together we are an unstoppable force.
-
- There followed a minute's silence, to remember the women who
- have had their lives taken from them. Last year the song
- "I will survive" was then played and women danced in Trafalgar
- Square. There being no electricity, this year we sang it.
- We finished by making a minute's noise- because women have
- always been silenced.
-
- It was an incredibly moving and uplifting experience. I personally
- felt profoundly exhilarated and re-energized. Across the world:
- Women's Tradition; Struggle not Submission.
-
- for information contact: November 25th Women's Action, 52 -54
- Featherstone Street, London EC1Y 8DB.
-
- (written by Sam Murdoch, from: 'Bad Attitude'- radical women's
- newspaper, 121 Railton Road, London SE24 OLR)
-
-
- NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit
- Modem: 718-448-2358 * Internet: nytransfer@igc.apc.org
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