CSAN, together with Safe in Faith, hosted a webinar to mark the International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women & Girls 2024, in which we launched our call to action for 16 Days of Activism. It was an inspiring and powerful session with expert speakers.
We heard from Dr Valerie Duval-Pujol about some of the existing initiatives to stand against domestic violence, including the Red Chair project, a Restored initiative which has seen cinemas, churches, train stations and schools hold take part and space for women and girls killed.
We encourage members and parishes to partake in this project and have published a poster (attached) which can be used to display on a red chair to hold space for the women killed. Nikki Dhillon-Keane spoke on this in her presentation as she launched our 16 Days of Activism calendar, through which we encourage individuals to take one action a day to learn more about the many forms of domestic violence and to help raise awareness across our communities, as well as to support existing organisations and initiatives.
We were also joined by Sarah Green, CEO at Women at the Well, a specialist organisation in responding to women whose lives have been affected by prostitution and/or sexual exploitation. Sarah spoke about the discourse around prostitution, and it is linked to domestic abuse, to sexual abuse and to organised crime. Sarah highlighted the importance of language used to talk about prostitution, how it impacts discourse and policy on the topic, and how it is important to be aware of this in order to retain hope for change.
We hope to continue these conversations in the Jubilee year and look forward to collaborating with members to raise awareness and work towards change.
To view the recordings of the talks please follow the links below:
Dr Valerie Duval-Pujol: https://youtu.be/W6RNh283OdE
Nikki Dhillon-Keane: https://youtu.be/Kp6ZOz84SgM
Sarah Green: https://youtu.be/jmKlcvpkmAY
