Day two 16 days - Missing

This week I heard about the Red Chair project. The idea is that you place a red chair somewhere public and put a sign above it. It is intended to represent the women who are now missing from the world because they were murdered victims of domestic violence. Read more about the project here and download the resources you need to join in.

This got me thinking about how many women and girls are not alive due to gender based violence and honestly looking at those numbers and related information is even more chilling than you'd imagine. Did you know that men's violence against women is one of the leading causes of premature death globally?

In 2022, just under 89,000 women and girls were murdered due to their sex. The number of gender based murders is actually UP when the overall global murder rate is DOWN. 

The Femicide Census is the only project independently collating this data. By looking at the data they can identify patterns and risk factors and this targeted information is able to be used to drive campaigns and influence public policy.

This information can be so confronting and I've often felt that the church avoided talking about this topic because it's violent and unthinkable but in the Bible we see so many stories of women suffering at the hands of men; Tamar, Hagar, the unnamed concubine, Bathsheba, the woman at the well, Dinah. They are not there as a glorification of VAWG, but as a warning for what happens when society and behaviour is unchecked. The women's stories are heard and not forgotten. We must continue to amplify their ancient voices and join them to the choruses of the current movements to effect lasting and meaningful inroads to eliminating violence against women and girls.





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