The Hindu : New Delhi News : Campaign to highlight plight of women begins

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 26, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Campaign to highlight plight of women begins

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, NOV. 25. It was an evening to remember all those women who never had the luxury of getting older. With many more having lost their lives in violence in the past one year, activists and non-government organisations gathered at Delhi's war memorial -- India Gate -- with candles this evening to mourn victims of an ongoing `war' against women.

A special day in the history of the women's movement, November 25 commemorates the murders of the Mirabal sisters Patria, Maria Teresa and Minerva known as "the butterflies'' who bravely fought against Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Proving to be powerful inspiration in death, their murders was an important factor in the overthrow of this brutal regime in 1961.

And remembering those who have lost their lives in India and all over the world for less nobler reasons that battling injustice, activists hope to be able to highlight the endless violence against women which is often not taken seriously enough. Kicking off a campaign on this day to raise awareness about different forms of violence against women, organisations try and reach out to as many people to garner support for the women's cause.

Culminating on International Human Rights Day on December 10 so as to link the violence against women to human rights. An active period for organisations committed to the cause of women, this period marks many important dates on the human rights calendar -- November 30th - South Asian Women's Day for Peace, Justice, Human Rights and Democracy; December 1 - World AIDS Day; December 3 - World Disability Day as well as the day hundreds of people lost their lives in the world's industrial disaster in Bhopal in gas leak at the Union Carbide Factory in Bhopal in 1984. The campaign also commemorates 14 women engineering students who were gunned down by a man in Canada as he believed that women should not become engineers. It also marks the anniversary of the Babri Masjid Demolition at Ayodhya in 1992.

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