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16 Days - Day 1: The IRC and Violence Against Women
Posted by Ann Jones on November 25th, 2007
 Defenseless villagers like these women attending an IRC meeting on obstetric care are hardest hit by the violence and disruption of war. Photo: Ann Jones |
The International Rescue Committee is working with writer, photographer and long-time women’s advocate Ann Jones to give women in war zones an opportunity to speak, loudly and clearly.
Ann is blogging from West Africa, posting new photos and stories each day for 16 days starting today, November 25 — the kick-off of “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.”
 War makes widows. This woman, widowed by war, is the sole support of her seven children. She made this self-portrait as a photographer with the Global Crescendo project. Photo: Zoumore Martine |
I came to Cote d’Ivoire in September, a volunteer for the IRC’s critically important program to combat Gender-Based Violence. I name the problem in plain English—Violence Against Women. But no matter what you call it, it’s a worldwide offense that damages or destroys the lives of untold numbers of women, and consequently the lives of their children and communities as well.Violence against women is so widespread and so commonplace that people generally tend to overlook it. It seems to be just another of those things we think we can’t really do much about, like rising prices or the weather. |
| Even in the United States, where women’s organizations have campaigned against violence for more than a century, nearly a third of women still are subject to domestic violence alone. | |
 War drives girls and boys from school. Many are seized as child soldiers, workers, and sex slaves. Photo: N’Zi Ahou Madelaine |
One way we minimize violence against women is by breaking it into separate categories—battering, rape, marital rape, harassment, trafficking, forced prostitution, forced marriage, sexual slavery, and so on. We get a lot of fractured statistics and we fail to add them up. To women, the violence is all of a piece.So what does violence against women have to do with the IRC? Everything. The IRC’s longstanding practice is to respond to human needs created by conflict. Today, it is civilians, not soldiers, who are by far the most numerous casualties of war. |
| Each successive conflict of recent times has tallied a greater and greater proportion of civilians displaced, exiled, assaulted, wounded, dead, and disappeared. (In Iraq they’ve lost count.) Most of those civilians are women and children. | |
 War drives women from their home places and cultures. Kasso Roseline (right), an internally displaced person who does not speak the language of her new village, found friends at last as a photographer in the Global Crescendo project at Zatta. Among them, her photo team mate Zounon Sylvie (left). Photo: Ann Jones |
What’s more, when a conflict officially ends, violence against women continues and grows worse. Murderous aggression is not turned off overnight: when men stop attacking one another, women continue to be convenient targets.Here in Cote d’Ivoire, as in so many other places where rape was used as a weapon of war, it has become a habit carried seamlessly from wartime into the troubled “post-conflict” time after that tries to pass for peace. Where normal structures of law enforcement and justice have been disabled by war, soldiers and civilian men alike can prey upon women and children with impunity. And they do. |
| So when the IRC walks into a post-conflict zone, it walks straight into violence against women. It doesn’t look away. It recognizes violence against women as a fundamental issue of human rights, a major public health concern, and a central aspect of peacemaking, rehabilitation, and development processes. That’s why the IRC has taken the lead among humanitarian organizations in working on gender-based violence. | |
 Returning soldiers bring violence home. Marital rape and wife-beating increase, often dramatically. IRC Community Health Worker Sylvie Zounon took this photo of a battered wife in her village. Sylvie became a photographer with the GBV Global Crescendo project. This was her first photograph. Photo: Zounon Sylvie |
And it’s why I volunteered to help. I’ve worked most of my life to overcome violence against women, and I’m grateful to the IRC for enabling me to carry on. Over the next several weeks I’ll let you know what we’re up to.You can sign up here to get updates on Ann’s latest post and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. |
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November 25th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Thank you so much Ann for dedicating your life to shedding light on this issue. We all need to be healed and learn to love and honor and
respect one another instead of resorting to violence and torturing others. I am with you.
With sincerity, Elaine Springer
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ebeautyandgrace
November 25th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Dear Ann,
I support what you are doing and respect your heartfelt posting. Not only do I have a doctorate in African education and have focused on women’s issues, I was battered myself for years when I was younger. I believe that women are changing rapidly. We are getting stronger. The African woman is strong. She was tilling the fields and feeding her family before the westernized version of farming disrupted her identity. In my family and the small rural southern town where I now live and work, I am still oppressed. I am oppressed because I am a strong independent woman. I am oppressed because I can live without a man. While I was battered for many years, I never told anyone. I hid my bruises and fractures with make-up and denial. I have six bolts in my jaw. I know I walked away from abuse, but the memories haunt me. I only hope that other women, especially women who have never been violated, abused, raped or tortured, will understand and accept that we who have suffered did not ask for it.
November 25th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
HI TO MY BELOVED SISTERS,
Bless your hearts. My heart aches for the sadness and sorrow you must carry in yours. I say a thousand thank you’s for everthing you do to help each other and for bringing awareness to these horrible unjustices and crimes… that even though they might have ended …. yesterday, last week, last month,last year…. they live on in the hearts of the wounded…YOU………and yes…. carry on into YOUR families and children, YOUR communities. The heart’s of YOUR society our society. A butterfly’s wings flap……….. and their are waves throughout the whole world. Everthing is felt everywhere. Energy is infinate, endless.
I send love, MUCH LOVE, on fluffy clouds to rain down into all of your hearts. May you know that you are beautiful, that you are goddesses, that you are queens. May you be strong and hold your heads high…… knowing in YOUR hearts alone…….. how powerful and beautiful YOU truly are……. no matter how hurt or bad others have treated, looked at YOU or disrespected YOUR hearts. In God’s eye you are all beautiful flowers to be honored, loved and treated as such. God….. who ever that is to you…. loves you unconditionally…… forever into and throughout all eternity.
May the spirits of light and love lift your hearts and souls up into the radiant light of love so that you will never forget… never forget….. and always remember these things of great importance. YOU are……. BEAUTIFUL no matter how hurt your heart is today, you are and will always be BEAUTY!
A THOUSAND KISSES to HEAL YOUR WOUNDED HEARTS THAT THEY MIGHT SOAR AGAIN to GREAT HEIGHTS of INFINATE LOVE, JOY, LAUGHTER, HEALTH and ABUNDANCE in the KNOWLEDGE of ALL that YOU TRULY ARE!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BEAUTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOVE FROM YOUR SISTER IN THE GREAT JOURNEY OF LIFE, Beverly
November 25th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
The utter degredation of women worldwide is absolutely appalling. We who are free must focus efforts on these problems. Let this be our war!
November 25th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Women are the spring of lively hood and whenever women face evils the whole society is at risk. women should feel encouraged to come out and report all forms of gender based violence and such information should be handled with most confidentiality .this is the only way to eradicate this monster(SGBV).women are our mothers, sisters and daughters they have to be protected.
November 25th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Ann, Thank you for your efforts. Yes, you are right. Sometimes things so overwhelming that it’s easier to believe that nothing can be done. But it’s this person to person effort that makes a healing difference. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
November 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
thank you for sharing.
November 25th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Thank you Ann. I have great admiration for these women survivors of such inhumanities. I understand about the aftermath of such Violence & wish I could do more to help. I am a Native American woman in a FN community. If I could build a home to sponsor these Women, I would do so, but I have no idea where to begin. For now, I can only offer my Friendship if any young woman is interested. Bless you and all these Women Survivors.
November 25th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Greetings Ann,
It is unfathomable to me how the kind of violence and terror can be allowed to occur in any part of the world. Especially towards women and children. I’m one of those people who does what she can, including writing letters, making phone calks, sending emails, signing petitions, donating when I can and enlisting others to do the same. As much time as people spend in their daily lives doing nothing more than becoming couch potatoes and watching porn, it bothers me to no end that none of them take part in any activism. Thank all goodness for you Ann and your heart of gold, love and compassion. My question now as always is, what can I do to help? Drop me a line and let me know. Blessings to all of the survivors of terror and violence of West Africa and other parts of the world. Blessings to you Ann.
November 25th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Thank you Ann for giving these women dignity and voices.
November 25th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I am hopeful that these 16 days of focus on such great abuse will
be an impact on many or maybe that few who will make a difference.
I have visited Africa a few times through the years and have seen
some of the need. May this effort begin a determined spirit to not
settle for less than the heart shouts is right especially by the
great team of photographers on the field. Great job Zounon Sylvie!!!
Deborah
November 26th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Dear sis,
For the Almighty sdo loved the world.He created you gave you a Big heart that you may give help infull or in parts to those affected.
Thanks for the big heart, may The Almighty give you streangth, courage and further determination to move on with the wonderful job
How I wish I would get an opportunity to serve the less priviledged by incorparating my medical knowledge in Pharmaceutical field to the needy.
God bless your heart
November 26th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Thanks Ann for allowing us the opportunity to view more closely the lives of these oppressed, yet beautiful women. I love the pic of the two women smiling broadly and happily. It gives me hope that the human spirit epitomized in those smiles, facing very difficult situations, will win out in the end. Blessings on all your efforts to educate us and touch our hearts.
Peace, Tom
November 27th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Thank you, Ann, for the work you are doing to help these women and for giving us first-hand information about what is happening. God bless you in your efforts to help change this tragic situation.
Sr. Magdalene
November 27th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
My heart is all at once saddened and yet joyful at the stories of courage under the conditions these women are living. I am very happy the IRC exists. As my Mom always said “There but for the grace of God, go I.” and with that saying, she would remind her six daughters of the gift of freedom and safety we were given when we were born in the United States of America. She always taught us that we should never take that gift for granted and we should always try to help other women (and men) find their freedom - be it from reproductive tyrany or failure of protective services. Thanks for these stories.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
This is such an important issue - thank you on behalf of those of us lucky enough to be born elsewhere, for it is a matter of circumstance only. We may face the same horrors but for accident of birth. This issue cannot be ignored or swept under the carpet simply because it is a difficult subject. For that reason alone your work is critical. It is necessary for these stories to be heard and discussed and shared so that one day women and children will live safely, no matter where they are. Thank you. Thank you.
March 28th, 2008 at 6:00 am
What can i do to help. I would love to volunteer
March 28th, 2008 at 6:03 am
Dear Ann,
Thanks for the good and wonderful work that you do.
Please let me know how i can help, i would love to volunteer.
I will be delighted.
Regards,
Des’ree
July 21st, 2008 at 2:15 pm
HI Ann!
I have wanted to volunteer with IRC for a while… but I am currently working at Save the Children and I just wanted you to know how much of an inspiration you have been to me! I have just graduated from College and I really want to get involved with women’s issues… especially those found in Africa. I am also very interested in photography as I have debated over and over whether I should attend a photography school.. though I always come back to not wanting to be in debt!!
I realize this is more of a career-focused question, but I was wondering how you got involved with IRC? Did you go to photography school? and do you have any advice and/or reccommendations/ suggestions for someone who is essentially trying to do exactly what you are doing! I just feel really moved by these issues and feel it is sonmething I want to address in a photographic (as well as written) form.
Thank you!
Courtney Crute