Global Roundup: VAW Marches Around the World, Nepal and Thailand Same-Sex Marriage, Cameroon Women Activists, Canada Pink Body Bags Campaign
Curated by FG Contributor Samiha Hossain
Marches in Italy against violence on women came after the killing of a 22-year-old university student shook the country © Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP
In Guatemala, protesters kicked off commemorations on Friday evening, placing candles to write out 438 – the number of women killed so far this year. In the Chilean capital of Santiago, some 1,000 protesters marched through the streets Friday night, chanting "Not one step backward" and demanding action by the government to protect women. A women's advocacy group estimates that 40 femicides have occurred in the country this year.
Along Rio de Janeiro's famed Copacabana Beach, protesters lined up 722 pairs of women's shoes, from high-heels to sneakers, each pair before a woman's name to represent the femicides recorded in 2022 – the highest number since 2019. And in Argentina, demonstrators in Buenos Aires combined a protest on violence against women with a show of support for the Palestinian people.
In Italy, which has been shaken by the murder of a 22-year-old university student, Giulia Cecchettin, allegedly by her former boyfriend, some 50,000 people demonstrated in Rome. This year, there have been 102 murder cases with female victims in Italy, 82 of them by family members or current or former partners, according to the interior ministry.
This year... takes on particularly important connotations for us... for those in this country who care about the rights, claims and emancipation of all women, following yet another femicide, the killing of Giulia Cecchettin. -Luisa Loduce, 22-year-old librarian
In Turkey, some 500 women gathered in the Sisli district in Istanbul, as riot police stood by, unfurling banners reading "We will not remain silent" and "Women are united and fighting against male-state violence." In France, several thousand people, many wearing purple, the color of women and gender equality, wove through the chilly streets of Paris and other cities, carrying signs reading: "One rape every six minutes in France" and "Protect your girls, educate your boys".
Members of the LGBTQ community take part in a pride march in Bangkok, Thailand in June 2023 [Manan Vatsyayana/AFP]
Last week the cabinet of the Thai government endorsed a bill that would amend the country’s Civil and Commercial Code to define marriage as between any two “individuals”. If approved by Parliament, it would make Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise same-sex marriage and only the second in all of Asia, after Taiwan. The government is hoping to move quickly and to hold the first of three votes the bill will need to pass to become law by next month.
The previous two administrations each sponsored a same-sex union or marriage bill of their own. But they failed to make it out of the lower house before Parliament was dissolved to make way for national elections, setting the process back to square one each time. LGBTQ rights advocates say this is the best chance Thailand has had yet to get the law passed.
Rapeepun Jommaroeng, an adviser and policy analyst for the Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand, which advocates for LGBTQ rights, expects pushback from some religious groups, mainly from the predominantly Buddhist country’s Christian and Muslim minorities. But, he says, they are unlikely to derail the bill.
This law is not about forcing people to do things they don’t want to. This is purposefully broad to enable people to have equality. It’s just only to give the liberty and freedom for two people to be united. -Rapeepun Jommaroeng
The bill can literally mean the difference between life and death, says Tunyawat Kamolwongwat, who was among the first four openly LGBTQ lawmakers elected to Thailand’s Parliament in 2019. Re-elected this past May, he recalled a trip to the north of the country last year, when a young woman approached him to share the story of a close friend, who was gay, driven to suicide by his family’s rejection. Kath Khangpiboon, a trans woman and advocate who teaches gender studies at Thailand’s Thammasat University, mentions how the bill would open up other rights and opportunities for the community.
It’s not only marriage status, to announce that they are a couple by law. But another thing is it’s related to social welfare and social services and other benefits combined with the law. -Kath Khangpiboon
Image: picture alliance / ZUMAPRESS.com
Marthe Wandou, Esther Omam and Sally Mboumien are activists and affiliates of 1st National Women's Convention for Peace in Cameroon. The body representing 77 organizations has been awarded the 2023 German Africa Prize.
Wandou and others are calling for an immediate ceasefire in Cameroon, where separatist groups have been fighting for independence of the English-speaking territories since 2017. The conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced over 712,000 people.
Wandou is particularly concerned about the schoolgirls in Cameroon. In the village of Makolo, in the far north of Cameroon, not all parents allow their daughters to go to school and child marriage is a major problem. Wandou tries to persuade girls and young women to go back to school or learn a trade. But first, she has to win over their parents.
For cultural reasons, people say that a girl who goes to school can't be a good wife. She won't find anyone to marry her, she'll just get pregnant. I feel bad because these prejudices still exist 40 years later. It's terrible and that's why we are sensitizing the families. -Marthe Wandou
In the fishing village of Debundscha, in the southwest of Cameroon, Esther Omam has set up a day clinic. Her NGO, Reach Out Cameroon, offers advice and free medication to thousands of patients weekly. Health centers in Debundscha were destroyed in fighting between separatists and the army. Omam is also active in helping women to set up small businesses and says she wants to break cycles of poverty and oppression.
The women talk to me about the need for access to water, and safe education. I have suffered from the same things. That's why it's satisfying for me to know that we are touching and changing lives. -Esther Omam
In the town of Bamenda, in northwestern Cameroon, the services of Sally Mboumien and her all-woman team are in high demand. Common Action for Gender Development offers reproductive health counseling and helps survivors of sexual violence. Mboumien regularly holds talks for girls in the region where she herself grew up and understands the challenges. Since 2015, Mboumien has been working to train young women to become active in their communities.
The women feel that they are being cheated economically, that they are being cheated of their well-being, that they have no bodily autonomy and that they have no leadership role. They are victims of many forms of abuse and violence. -Sally Mboumien
Nepal has registered its first same-sex marriage. (Getty)
An LGBTQ+ couple has finally become the first in Nepal to legally register a same-sex marriage – four months after the country’s landmark Supreme Court ruling. Although the country’s civil code describes marriage as being between a man and a woman, a Supreme Court Justice made an interim order this July that same-sex marriage could be legally registered.
The ruling was celebrated by LGBTQ+ couples across the country, but when it came down to the crunch, registering a same-sex marriage still proved difficult. LGBTQ+ couple Surendra Pandey and Maya Gurung had been rejected when applying to register their marriage and had their pleas rejected twice – once by a District Court and once by a High Court.
Finally, on Wednesday, the couple made history as the first in Nepal to receive official same-sex marriage status at the Dorje village council office, just west of the capital, Kathmandu. Sunil Babu Pant, an LGBTQ+ rights activist and openly gay former parliamentarian explained that the country’s Home Ministry made changes just this week to enable all local administration offices to register same-sex marriages.
After 23 years of struggle we got this historic achievement, and finally Maya and Surendra got their marriage registered at the local administration office…It was quite unexpected and it was a positive breeze for us. -Sunil Babu Pant
Nepal is now the second Asian country to legalise same-sex marriage, following closely behind Taiwan, whose parliament passed a law to legalise marriage equality in 2019.
A powerful display of pink body bags is being used in a Toronto campaign to shed light on the growing issue of femicide across the country. (Courtesy: @AuraFreedom/Twitter)
A powerful display of pink body bags is being used in a Toronto campaign to shed light on the growing issue of femicide across Canada. A day ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, grassroots organization Aura Freedom unveiled a pop-up activation in downtown Toronto as part of their “For Her” campaign that calls on the federal government to declare femicide a national emergency.
The activation features life-sized pink body bags which represent traditional advertising tropes of gendered products for women while also demonstrating the stark reality of women killed by male violence. In a video about the campaign, it shows a seamstress detailing and designing a bag for women. She narrates the video as if she is creating the latest luxury bag on the market, however at the end of the video, viewers see that it is actually a body bag. The video cleverly describes it as “the bag women in Canada are dying for,” followed by statistics about femicide.
It’s intentionally hard hitting because femicide is hard hitting, intentionally staggering because femicide is staggering. So, we wanted it to be bold. We’re tired of our world ignoring femicide. We’re tired of people making excuses for male violence against women, sanitizing it, you know, explaining it away. -Marissa Kokkoros, Aura Freedom Founder and Executive Director
According to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, every two days in Canada a woman or girl is killed violently, most often by a man, solely because she is a woman. Kokkoros notes that Indigenous women, in particular, are disproportionately affected by femicide which is why the women’s organization has also partnered with the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto to bring awareness to MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls).
Samiha Hossain (she/her) is an aspiring urban planner studying at Toronto Metropolitan University. Throughout the years, she has worked in nonprofits with survivors of sexual violence and youth. Samiha firmly believes in the power of connecting with people and listening to their stories to create solidarity and heal as a community. She loves learning about the diverse forms of feminist resistance around the world.