Because although the name of the organization is One Billion Rising, the numbers of women, especially, but also children who are sexually abused is probably double that figure.
Although, unfortunately, many people, including women themselves, refuse to admit this nightmare exists, women, primarily, but also children of both sexes, are victims worldwide of sexual violence. Every day and in every country in the world. This has been going on for thousands of years, perhaps, as much as the 3 million years that humanity has existed. Until the 20th century, women had no legal starus and were considered the property of their male "owners", whether fathers, brothers, uncles or spouses. The marriage ceremony, which seems so romantic, is really a "transfer of ownership" of the bride by her father to her new owner: her husband. When I realized this during a friend´s wedding, it rocked me back in my seat. The father, the original owner, takes her hand and places it in the hand of the new owner: her husband. It looks romantic, but it was literally true in the past, and still is in many non-western countries. Let us free women from the slavery they were consigned to over many millennia. Children had no legal rights either and could be treated as their father "owners" or others chose. Women and children could be sold, mistreated, thrown into the street or killed at male will. That is history until 1918 when British and American suffragettes won the right to vote and go to university for the first time in human history, and the western world began this vital change for the sex that bears humanity and cares for it all during its first years. We would not be alive without mothers. But violence against women continues as a huge statistic. Protect women and children from violence both sexual and emotional.
