Home > News > Articles & speeches > White Ribbon pledge to end violence against women and girls

We now have a whole range of special days or weeks even months when our attention is drawn to specific charities or campaigns. So this month we have seen a charity fundraising day for Children in Need Day, and you may have seen some men who are usually clean shaven suddenly sporting new moustaches as part of the Movember campaign, which highlights men’s health issues such as prostate cancer.

One important campaign which is not perhaps so well-known begins for a fortnight on 25th November; it is the White Ribbon campaign. This campaign was started back in 1991 by a small group of men in Canada who chose a white ribbon as a symbol of men’s opposition to men’s violence against women. With only a few weeks’ preparation, they managed to involve a hundred thousand men across Canada in wearing a white ribbon.  Since then the campaign has spread to many countries across the world, starting in the UK in 2004, and it now has widespread support, including from high profile football and rugby players.

The statistics are sobering: across England and Wales two women every week are killed by their partner or ex-partner and the police receive on average over 100 calls on domestic abuse every hour.

So this campaign has a long way to go. We can start this week by wearing a white ribbon which is a personal pledge never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women, but we need a sustained and far-reaching campaign to reduce domestic violence.

 

This article appeared in the Llanelli Star on Wednesday 22nd November