A billion refugees!

In Bangladesh, even going out to celebrate could be interpreted as misdemeanour by women.

Samin Sabababdnews24.com
Published : 13 Feb 2016, 09:48 AM
Updated : 13 Feb 2016, 09:48 AM

The sexual assaults on women at the Dhaka University during the Bengali New Year is just one example about the rising insecurity of the fair sex.     

Even more frightening than that is the feeling among a section of people that the attacks were justified.

These voices formed a significant chunk of society, a fact that has frozen many into non-action.

Eve Ensler described the state perfectly. “When you are violated, you leave your body and become frightened to connect to it.”

The famed author of the Vagina Monologues was in Dhaka to kick off this year’s ‘One Billion Rising’, the global solidarity movement she started in 2012.

That was after UN statistics revealed that every one in three women across the planet would have faced beatings or rape.

“That means there are one billion refugees who have left their bodies, their connection to power, imagination, vitality and sexuality.”

Along with actor and OBR’s global coordinator Monique Wilson, she spoke to reporters at the National Press Club, in presence of OBR's coordinator in Bangladesh Khushi Kabir.    

Flash mobs are central to the activities organised in more than 200 countries on OBR’s V-Day, on Feb 14.

Ensler, with years of experience on broadway, had married activism and art. 

“People ask me, what does dance do? It’s my favourite question. Well, what does breathing do? I think dancing does everything. If you’ve left your body, dance is the way back.”

Eve Ensler

“I became obsessed after the UN’s findings about one in three women being raped. A billion women, I couldn’t stop thinking about how unacceptable it was.

“Then I was in Congo and I couldn’t help but notice this extraordinary energy in how Congolese women danced. That’s when this thought hit me.

“Men who love their women have joined our struggle. But men really need to acknowledge that it was never our issue. We are not the ones raping ourselves!”

Ensler already had a wide network of countries where her play, Vagina Monologues, was staged.

So within weeks after she sent out invites for dancing to end women’s plight, she had a movement going.

Since then millions of dollars were raised, shelter projects created in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Kenya and Congo. Women have joined in from countries like Iran, Turkey and Iraq.

Ensler said Saudi Arabia was the only country where women held 'underground risings'.     

In Bangladesh, 47 organisations were part of the rising, with networks for acid survivors, women workers, adolescents, sex workers and transgender groups.

That echoed Ensler’s belief that the situation would change when the most marginalised portion of women in society take the lead.

“We also use the same method,” said Nurun Nahar Begun, an acid survivor who works with ActionAid on gender based violence.

“A person may lose her sense of self after an attack, they become rigid. When we work with them, we ask them to sing and dance. They might feel self-conscious at first, but that is the way out.”   

“Patriarchy leaves us hopeless but our risings give back our right to scream and cry," said Monique Wilson, a renowned actor from Philippines who began her stage career when she was just nine. 

" This is where you really push yourselves to call out your perpetrators, because we need to do more than raise slogans.

Monique Wilson

“Women must have the courage to disrupt and misbehave … and they must do that with fierce energy.”

“There is a potent factor to this dancing. For women it ends literal and theoretical thinking around their situation to bring the body back into discourse.

“Once your heart is open, you are compelled to take action.”  

She said Bangladesh already had a dynamic women’s movement before OBR which has been modelling the risings across the world.

“It’s very much a hub for culture and artistic innovation, it has inspired other women from across the world,” said Wilson when asked to elaborate.

“In our time here, we have seen much of that promise and energy being delivered by the young people we’ve met.”

“Many young people have come to us asking if there will be dancing this year,” said Kashfia Feroz of ActionAid, a partner with the rising. 

“Some of them wore head scarves but they did not lack in enthusiasm. I told them we’ll have flash mobs but their parents must be informed because it might get a little late.”

“They wanted this so much that it didn’t seem to bother them at all. They told me, ‘don’t worry about that, we’ll manage’.”