The recent 25 November was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

On 20 December 1993, the United Nations General Assembly had designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This was done in order to make people all over the world aware of the fact that many women all over the world suffer violence just because they are women, while many people are not even aware of the scale of this, and in addition, this situation if often intentionally downplayed or denied in many societies.

The Website of the United Nations elaborates:

“Why we must eliminate violence against women

“Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today that remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma, and shame surrounding it.

“In general terms, it manifests itself in physical, sexual, and psychological forms, encompassing:

• intimate partner violence (battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide);
• sexual violence and harassment (rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber-harassment);
• human trafficking (slavery, sexual exploitation);
• female genital mutilation; and
• child marriage.

  “To further clarify, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, issued by the UN General Assembly in 1993, defines violence against women as ‘any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.’

While the need for more awareness about this reality is fortunately more and more widely accepted, it is interesting that one fundamental aspect of the historical reason to create this reminder day is not much mentioned at all: that this day started with remembering struggle and suffering, even unto death.

“Women in Latin America and the Caribbean had honored the day since 1981. Historically, the date is based on the date of the 1960 assassination of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic; the killings were ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo (1930–1961). In 1981, activists at the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Meetings marked 25 November as a day to combat and raise awareness of violence against women more broadly.

“The Mirabal Sisters – also known as Las Mariposas (The Butterflies) – were political activists from the Dominican Republic who were assassinated by the brutal Trujillo dictatorship on 25 November 1960. Their deaths transformed these brave women into national martyrs, revolutionary heroes, and feminist icons.

The Mirabal Sisters: FROM SHELTERED ‘COLEGIALAS’ TO WOMEN OF CONSCIENCE

“Born into a family of landowners, the four Mirabal sisters – Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, and Dedé – grew up in a highly conservative and sheltered environment in the rural town of Ojo de Agua, in the province of Salcedo, in the Dominican Republic. The sisters all went to Catholic boarding school, married ‘good’ men, had children, went to church… in short, not obvious candidates to be revolutionaries. As they matured however, all four developed social consciences, realizing that daily life in their country had been distorted for an entire generation as a result of Rafael Trujillo’s brutal dictatorship.

“His rule included instances of bribery, murder, the disappearances of anything or anyone who challenged him, sexual advances towards a number of unwilling women, along with a number of other injustices.

“One of the sisters, Minerva, had firsthand knowledge of the dictator’s nature. At age 22, having turned down sexual overtures from Trujillo (reports are that she slapped him in the presidential Palace), she was jailed and banned from continuing her law studies.

“Two of the sisters, Minerva and Maria Teresa, were also imprisoned, raped and tortured on several occasions.

“By 1960, Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, and their husbands had become thoroughly enmeshed in the growing anti-Trujillo resistance movement that began to sweep the Dominican Republic. Their husbands, having been involved with a failed revolt of June 1959, were arrested and imprisoned.

“By the closing months of 1960, Trujillo had lost patience with the revolutionary movement and particularly with the Mirabal sisters. Incensed by their fearless refusal to cease their oppositional activities, Trujillo gave orders to kill the sisters. Enticed by a ruse, the Mirabal sisters thought that their request to see their imprisoned husbands in a remote jail had finally been approved. On the way to the prison on November 25, 1960, they were arrested, subjected to horrific torture, and killed.”

A difficult history – and it should not be forgotten.

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Some of the information about the creation the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women I collected from sites of the United Nations. But most came from a friend in the Philippines who wrote on Facebook:

“Reposting. And I plan to keep on posting this yearly until more are familiar with the names of the Mirabal sisters and their story… and how November 25th became the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women…”