Some 200 people in Malta yesterday joined a global campaign urging one billion women to get up and dance for the other one billion women that get beaten or raped.
The campaign, called One Billion Rising notes that one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. “One billion violated women is an atrocity, but one billion dancing women is a revolution.”
Held on the 15th anniversary of V-Day, which is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, one billion women and those who love them were urged to dance, rise up and demand an end to this violence.
In Malta, 43-year-old Maltese domestic abuse survivor Lorraine Camilleri organised a dance in St Anne Square, Sliema, in collaboration with the local council and Victim Support Malta.
Abused by her first husband some 20 years ago, Ms Camilleri is now a Victim Support volunteer. “I am living proof that life goes on,” she told The Times.
The mother-of-three thanked her “amazingly supportive” second husband Stephen, adding that men tend to be portrayed as perpetrators, but they are also the ones that support victims of violence.
Malta is not immune to the statistic that one-third of women are abused, and One Billion Rising is the beginning of a new energy, she said.
“It is not the end of our struggle but the escalation of it. Today we are dancing and rising, but don’t let it end here. Reach out to others. Give them hope. Don’t judge. Help us finish what we started by making violence against women and girls the central issue locally, nationally and internationally. The world is ready to shift and it begins with us, together, saying: enough, listen to us, stop talking and take action. Break the chain,” she told those who gathered for an hour of dancing despite the drizzle.
AD chairman Michael Briguglio, the Opposition leader’s wife Michelle Muscat, Ministers Jason Azzopardi and George Pullicino, PN president Marthese Portelli, Nationalist MP Karl Gouder; and PL candidates Nikita Alamango and Cyrus Engerer, among others, were also present. The initiative was supported by Aditus and Integra.