By Jan Butter, Director for Communications at the Anglican Communion Office

Anglican women from 20 countries attend a global forum on ending violence

Despite the freezing snow and bitter wind, hundreds of women marched out of the UN compound onto the Manhattan streets. Their destination – an unimpressive, wet stage – hardly seemed worth it, but then the march wasn’t about going from A to B, it was about delivering a message to the assembled media and onlookers. That message  appeared on the long blue banner carried in front of the procession: End Violence Against Women.

Every year millions of women and girls of every social class from all countries are violently abused. Those  arching through the icy cold were just some of the 6,000-plus international delegates who had travelled to New York City for the 57th session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 57); an annual meeting that, this year, had the theme of the elimination and  prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.

Walking the talk

One of these delegates was Kim Mi-ryoung. She spoke with quiet passion about her work helping abused women. It came as a shock to learn that she had been a victim of violence herself. “I’m involved with outreach and rescue,” she explained, “and pimps have attacked me twice.” This is because Mi-ryoung regularly visits the red-light districts in her home town handing out cards with a  phone number sex workers can call if they want to escape their life of prostitution.

Mi-ryoung and her husband— a priest in the Anglican Church of Korea—house women who have done so. The couple currently look after 15 women, but over the past 16 years, Mi-ryoung has given shelter to around 800 women. They have also adopted three children whose mothers were unable to care for them. Mi-ryoung’s ministry began when she was studying social welfare and undertook a study on prostitution. “As I interviewed the women I thought that I could not just study them, but I needed to live with them to understand [their situation]. It became my passion.”

When the women decide to leave, Mi-ryoung arranges vocational training such as hairdressing, jewellery-making and soap-making for them. Out of her experiences Miryoung has developed a feminist theology which she hopes will, in time, be accepted by what is a very traditional church. This is crucial because, according to  Mi-ryoung, in her church, the Anglican Church of Korea, she is the only one who does this work. “In our culture it’s not easy to speak out about rescuing women from prostitution. People won’t listen, even though my husband is a priest.”

Mi-ryoung said she would be taking her CSW experiences and learnings with her to Korea. “We need a CSW in our country, in our church,” she said with a determined smile.

The root causes

Newer CSW delegates can often be surprised how many similarities there are between the difficulties facing women in very different countries. Alice Garrick, from the Church of Pakistan, has attended the CSW four times. “We share and listen and see different experiences from women leaders around the world. Although they are different,  their challenges are still the same. African women are facing the things that we are facing in Asia: stigma everywhere for marginalised women, and for women who are involved in the sex trade.”

Alice said the things that leave women at risk of violence and abuse are the same everywhere: a lack of literacy, a lack of skills, and the effect of poverty. She explained that back in Pakistan she’s involved with projects that help girls avoid such traps. “A big focus [for us] is women’s education and skills training, finding honourable sources of earning. We want them to avoid the sex trade.”

Being at the table

So what is the value of leaving such crucial work and travelling half way around the world to New York? Australian Ann Skamp was the leader of the Anglican Communion delegation this year. She said attending the CSW is important on several levels; in particular because this group of Anglicans and Episcopalians together have a major opportunity to influence and connect with government delegations and missions, non-governmental organisations, civil society groups and global media.

“The level of engagement and potential for witness is enormous,” she said. “That is apart from what we ourselves take back. This year has been a real joy because our strong ecumenical involvement also emphasised the importance of attending this event.” She disagrees with those who say that the UN is ineffective: “The nature of the UN is that things happen slowly...[but] when something happens it has enormous influence on nation states.”

Ann added that the Anglican Communion delegates ensure they are as informed as possible so they can influence government missions and delegations as they work on agreed conclusions. “It’s slow and it takes time, but when something happens [we have] a document we can use to say to our governments in our own contexts ‘Hey, you’ve agreed to this’.”

The next generation

American teenager Hannah Cannon was part of a group of girls brought to the CSW from Fredericksburg, Virginia. Having researched a school project on sexual assault in the military she was no stranger to the issue.

Nevertheless she was clearly moved by her first time at the international gathering, particularly by meeting other young women from India and Kenya. She said she had been especially challenged by speakers who had highlighted the need to address gender stereotypes as a means to ending violence against women and girls.

“Michael Kaufman [a cofounder of the White Ribbon Campaign for men and boys working against violence against women and girls] was speaking about the paradox of living in a patriarchal society and bringing up men to standards that can never be achieved,” she explained. “That’s mainly what he advocates for, not having such extremes—men are big and strong and women are weak and emotional—but to bring the gender stereotypes closer to the middle.

“If that happened how different would our society be? Would there be equality? Less violence? Less war?” She praised Bangladeshi Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury for calling for boys and girls to be taught respect for one another in childhood. “It really does come down to the kids because they’re the future of our society. What they  are taught and what they believe will be society one day...Listening to Ambassador Chowdhury, this is what I wrote down: ‘Men and women are different, but equality can still be achieved’. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell people for a long time... I think people don’t understand the concept of equality. It doesn’t have to be exactly the same, it just needs to be fair.”

ENDS

This feature appears in April's edition of Anglican World magazine. Subscribe for just £10 a year for four editions here