ARCHIVE ACTIVITY
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25 November 2021
Iniziative (EN) -
Federazione Anna Lindh Italia - Onlus (EN)
The Fondazione Mediterraneo - together with the Anna Lindh Italia Federation, the Kimiyya programme and the Museum of Peace - MAMT - celebrated in Naples and in other Euro-Mediterranean cities the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This event was established by the General Assembly of the United Nations through resolution number 54/134 of 17 December 1999.
The United Nations General Assembly," President Capasso reminded the many women present at the Museum of Peace, "designated 25 November as the date of the anniversary and invited governments, international organisations and NGOs to organise activities on that day to raise public awareness of the problem of violence against women.
The date of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women also marks the beginning of the "16 days of activism against gender-based violence" preceding World Human Rights Day on 10 December each year, initiated in 1991 by the Center for Women's Global Leadership (CWGL) and supported by the United Nations, to highlight that violence against women is a violation of human rights. This period", said President Capasso, "includes a number of other significant dates, including 29 November, Women Human Rights Defenders Day (WHRD), 1 December, World AIDS Day, and 6 December, the anniversary of the Montreal Polytechnic massacre, when 14 female engineering students were killed by a 25-year-old man who claimed he wanted to fight feminism".
In many countries, such as Italy, the colour displayed on this day is red and one of the symbolic objects is red women's shoes, lined up in squares or public places to represent the victims of violence and feminicide. The idea came from an installation by Mexican artist Elina Chauvet, Zapatos Rojos, created in 2009 in a square in Ciudad Juarez, and inspired by the murder of her sister by her husband and the hundreds of women kidnapped, raped and murdered in this border town in northern Mexico, a hub of the drug and human trafficking market. The installation has since been replicated in many countries around the world, including Argentina, the United States, Norway, Ecuador, Canada, Spain and Italy. The campaign in Italy is being carried out in particular by the Anti-Violence Centre and women's associations working in the field of violence against women.
And it was precisely red that welcomed the many visitors - in compliance with the anti-Covid 19 rules - who came to the Museum. There was great emotion in the Marrakech Room, where the walls are lined with the blank footprints of violated women whose stories can be seen on the Museum's video wall screens.
