The international campaign originated from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University in 1991. Each year the campaign mobilizes tens of thousands of people around the world, raising awareness about the many forms of violence faced by women from all walks of life, of every economic status, and in every community throughout the world.

The theme of this year’s campaign is ‘Commit ▪ Act ▪ Demand’ and the idea behind is to honor the individuals and organization working towards the cause.

Bloggers and social media users across the world are doing their bit for the cause by writing about what do they understand of violence against woman and how change can be brought. There are some incredible work happening in the field of social media to empower women and ensure equality by use of social media and other related technology.

As an attempt to honour such great work, over the next few days on this blog, we will aggregate all blog posts related to the campaign, other social media activities etc. We are doing this as part of our Blog the Bell initiative under which we encourage social media users to speak up against violence by blogging about the cause.

Today’s picks:

1) Julie Ann Maraa has a post on 25th Nov being the International day to end violence against women. The post also talks about the White Ribbon Day independently launched by Australia urging Australian men to take an oath to end violence.[link]

2) Pakistan based social political blog Teeth Maestro has a post by Sunshine Welfare Organization (SWO) which is a Karachi based group of committed youth working towards gender equality. The posts talks about the growing concern over the miserable condition of Pakistani women and also features the various activities planned by SWO during the 16 days of activism. [link]

R&B singer Chris Brown, 19, released a public apology to Rihanna and all his fans on the 20th of July saying,”I can only ask and pray that you forgive me.”

In the video, Brown told his fans that he was ashamed of his behaviour towards Rihanna, 21.”What I did was unacceptable, 100 per cent. I can only ask and pray that you forgive me. Please,” he said. Addressing his fans, Brown says, “As many of you know, I grew up in a home where there was domestic violence, and I saw first-hand what uncontrolled rage could do. I have sought and I am continuing to seek help to ensure that what occurred in February can never happen again.”

Brown was sentenced to five years probation’ and ordered to do six months of community service by a Los Angeles court. Judge Schnegg issued a stay-away order for both Rihanna and Brown. Rihanna’s lawyer, Donald Etra, said the singer believed it was a “fair and just resolution” to the case. Brown will be formally sentenced on 5 August.
He closes his video statement by saying, “I intend to live my life so that I am truly worthy of the term ‘role model.’ “ With his admission in court last month, Brown tarnished his carefully cultivated image as a teen idol.

The public announcement has acquired over 20,000 comments and a large number of them are terribly puzzling. On blogs and social networking sites, teenagers are having an e-shouting match about this highly publicized episode — perhaps the first time their generation has been compelled to think aloud about dating violence. And what may be surprising is the level of support for Mr. Brown. While thousands of teenagers have certainly turned on Mr. Brown, many others — regardless of race or gender — defend him, often at Rihanna’s expense. Some comments bordered on racism while some questioned the genuineness of the apology. But the most appalling were those that declared their love for Chris no matter what! The video has also been uploaded by several of his female fans on their personal channels who believe that Rihanna asked for this or rather, brought it on!

The problem, of course, is that we do need to judge him, or at least his behavior. The reaction of his young female fans, who are heaping the blame on Rihanna, is entirely inappropriate. And more than that, it is frightening.
The bottom line seems to be this: No matter how much we talk about dating violence, there is always room for more conversation. Teens — young women in particular, but young men as well — need to be reminded that abuse has no place in a romantic relationship. This specific conversation, about Chris Brown and Rihanna, opens the door for us to talk to our kids about dating violence, but it also opens up a discussion of how teen culture — television and music and celebrity gossip — influences their values and actions.

It’s not enough to say that our daughters need to stand up for themselves; after all, these girls are standing up for Chris Brown. We need to talk with them about how they choose their role models, and what it means to look up to someone, and what to do when that role model falls short of their expectations.
And we need to make absolutely sure they understand that it is never okay for a man to hit a woman — or vice versa.

Chris Brown Aplogises to Rihanna

bigpicture recently posted this link on Twitter: Keira Knightley stars in a very effective domestic violence PSA. – http://shrinkify.com/ndo

This two-minute video called Cut Movie, highlights the fact that two women die every week from domestic violence in the UK. This video is a part of a national domestic violence awareness campaign launched by Women’s Aid. The campaign centres on a hard-hitting short film directed by BAFTA-winning director, Joe Wright and starring critically acclaimed multi-award winning actress Keira Knightley.

Many celebrities use their popularity with the masses to promote a cause. Boman Irani did it with Bell Bajao. He’s doing the same right now with the Lead India campaign along with Aamir Khan. Celebrity endorsement for social causes indeed works beutifully towards making an impact on the poeple, giving credibily to the issue and actually bringing the issue out into the domain of public conversation and dialogue. As written in this article “Takes a while for it to gain steam but when it does, it’s incredibly effective.”

What do you think of the video and the campaign?