A mighty call for mercy on behalf of the world’s battered women


Jasmine Huggins | April 6, 2011

A woman outside of a temporary shelter near Léogâne, Haiti. Photo: Catianne Tijerina/ACT Alliance

A woman outside of a temporary shelter near Léogâne, Haiti. Photo: Catianne Tijerina/ACT Alliance

As if the challenges of putting their lives back together after a devastating earthquake weren’t already big enough, Haitian women are enduring an epidemic of rape and sexual violence.

The 900,000 population that lives in tents in spontaneous settlements is particularly at risk owing to precarious living conditions.  But women all over Haiti are vulnerable, because normal life has been so disrupted by the earthquake and its aftermath, because policing is so poor, because the law rarely prosecutes men who rape, because detained men are quickly released and return to communities to terrorize women, because jails were destroyed in the earthquake and because the government is too busy with other post-earthquake challenges to prioritize vulnerable women and girls.

Mercifully, there are far more activists on gender-based violence today all over the world than 20 years ago, when I was a volunteer.  The recently concluded Ecumenical Advocacy Days event in Washington, D.C., introduced me to quite a few more.  It also tried to create new activists out of the hundreds of Christians from all around the United States who had gathered for four days of worship, learning, discussion and action.

I heard of Haitian women who endured multiple rapes in one night and of families where every generation – grandmother, mother and daughter – had been raped since the earthquake.  I heard about gender based violence all over Asia and in the Sudan.

I listened to Ritu Sharma, Co-Founder and President of Women Thrive Worldwide, who powerfully reminded those present that as voters, citizens and worshippers, they could use their moral and electoral power to effect national and international changes that can make a real difference to the lives of millions of women around the world.  She called for resources to be given to prevention programs, for legislative changes that would make this crime punishable by laws in different countries and for an end to the astonishing silence and impunity that is the scourge of all those who have endured violence.

Later, I participated in advocacy training for participants, where expert lobbyists gave us tips on how to approach our representatives, getting the message across succinctly and effectively, and asking for a second meeting.  We set out to urge Congress to address violence against women by:

  • Fully-funding programs that serve families – especially those struggling to overcome poverty – domestically and around the world;
  • Re-authorizing and fully-funding the Violence Against Women Act and enacting and funding the International Violence Against Women Act

Clarion calls for justice don’t come much better than this: a clear message, powerfully delivered by informed professionals; clear asks of Congress; lobbyists on board to help expedite efficient messages; pre-arranged meetings with members of Congress; and representatives from an enormously diverse ecumenical network backed by a unifying faith perspective that people matter and that injustices must be addressed.

Ecumenical Advocacy Days tapped into the enormous potential resource available within U.S. churches and applied it to a too-long hidden problem.  It has tried to turn concerned Christians into activists.

Imagine what change could be effected if this resounding cry sounded across churches in America and gathered into a blaring call for mercy on behalf of the world’s battered women?

Maybe then authorities would really sit up, listen and dig deep into congressional budgets.

But it will take more than one event, however good it is, to ensure that violence against women and girls is given the attention it urgently needs.  It will take years of persistent drumming, consistent work and more, many more, inspiring, stirring, if not strident, calls for action.

Jasmine Huggins is the CWS senior advocacy officer for Haiti.  She is based in the Washington, D.C. office.