Originally published on the CGS blog on March 8, 2013.
Today is my favorite holiday. I learned about it in Italian class. In Italian, the holiday is called, La Festa della Donna, in English we call it International Women’s Day. La Festa della Donna is my favorite holiday because in Italy, women are given mimosa flowers, a mimosa cake and are told to take the day off. It’s like the Italian Valentine’s Day for every woman.
In honor of La Festa della Donna I am taking the United Nation’s International Women’s Day theme of A Promise is a Promise: Time for Action to End Violence against Wome.
Project Mimosa is my own personal motto to create awareness of women’s issues. This is the year for ending violence against women. The United States Congress recently passed the Violence Against Women Act and with the same commitment to ending violence against women, the US Senate should ratify the Convention of the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Here are my reasons why:
- In India, 8,093 cases of dowry-related death were reported in 2007
- Worldwide, up to 50 percent of sexual assaults are committed against girls under 16.
- An estimated 150 million girls under the age of 18 suffered some form of sexual violence in 2002 alone.
- The first sexual experience of some 30 percent of women was forced.
- Approximately 100 to 140 million girls and women in the world have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting
- Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18
- Women and girls are 80 percent of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked across national borders annually, with the majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual exploitation.
- In the United States, 83 percent of girls aged 12 to 16 experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools.
- Conservative estimates suggest that 20,000 to 50,000 women were raped during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while approximately 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls were targeted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Those stats might seem like just stats to you, but to me, they are a reason to fight. My freshman year of college not only did I learn Italian but I learned that the girl across the hall from me killed herself because she was sexually assaulted just three weeks into the school year. 1/3 of college women will be sexually assaulted in their four years of college and that is a sickening reality for far too many women.
So help us end violence against women. Tell your senator to ratify CEDAW, volunteer at a women’s shelter, share this blog post, or just maybe ask that friend that seems down if she’s OK. So to celebrate International Women’s Day 2013, have a mimosa, whether it is the flower, the cake or the drink and tell the women in your life that you love them and are always there for them.
