16 Days Activism Against Gender-based Violence

Namaste! Today is the first day of the '16 days activism against gender-based violence'. By now, many of you may have been already aware that Didibahini Samaj Victoria (DBSV) has been involved in raising awareness in the issue of family violence since its establishment.

16 days activism against Gender-Based Violence is an international global campaign to challenge violence against women and girls. The Campaign runs every year from 25th November; the International Day for the Elimination of violence against women to 10 December, Human rights day.

Unlike before, this year DBSV has changed its modalities and has started to raise awareness through Social Media on the issues of gender-based violence by publishing 2-minutes short video messages from community members and leaders with a great deal of useful information.

I would like to congratulate and thanks to those who have already sent the 2 minutes video and who are sending during these 16 days to air through our social media.

Violence against women is really a burning social issue as we all know. It has touched our soul, hearts, minds, and bodies as we can imagine! There is no exception! We all have been affected by this in some ways. That's why we are standing strong today to make a very remarkable marking within ourselves and in our society, to fight and rise above and beyond to change our societal lenses to see, to value and to respect girls and women.

Well, being woman, being a wife, being a mother, a sister, a daughter and friends of many women who have been a victim of family violence, I could easily feel, I could easily see, and sense that we all are thriving, to make our own society to be free from this nasty crime, the violence that is happening in front of our eyes, in our own home, in our own society.

There are women dying every day due to our own human behaviour! Now our home is not being a safe place for us, our park, our walking trails are not being safe for us; why? Because we are a 'women'! What a shameful era of 21st century we are living in! Our home, supposed to, be a place for love, security and belongings, instead; it's turning into a place for death, a place for victimisation, a place for traumatisation, and place for self sabotiztion! I think this is a real shame for all of us!

As an individual, regardless of you are a man, a husband, a son, or you are a friend, a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister; regardless of your social position in the society, we need to think beyond, whether our own behaviours are being a cause for increasing this violence, or being a cause for preventing violence! Here, we need to be mindful within us today; our actions, our words, our thoughts, even a small step we take have a huge impact to prevent this violence in our home; in our society.

What I want to urge everyone, each of you, to think high, just generate your own sensitive thinking to bring this issue forward within you and check every thinking that we generate is a provocative for increasing violence or provocative for preventing violence.

Thank you

Jamuna Parajuli | President
Didi Bahini Samaj Victoria