Note to Correspondents

FILMS ON GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE TO BE SCREENED AT THE NEW SCHOOL

Discussion Will Highlight Secretary-General’s Campaign to End Violence against Women

Documentary films on gender-based violence will be screened on Saturday, 12 April, at The New School in support of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s campaign to end violence against women and girls.  The screenings will take place from 5:30-8 p.m. in Tishman Auditorium.

Co-sponsored by the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI), HBO and The New School, the event centres on the HBO film The Greatest Silence:  Rape in the Congo by Emmy-Award winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson.  The feature-length documentary looks at the decade-old epidemic of kidnapping, rape and torture of women and girls in the civil war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

“This issue is a priority for the Secretary-General, who has pledged to tackle systematic violence against women,” said Eric Falt, Director of the Outreach Division, DPI.  “I was struck by a comment made by one of the film’s protagonists, Major Honorine Munyole, an officer with the National Police:  ‘Woman is the mother of a nation.  He who rapes a woman, rapes an entire nation.’  Violence against women has a negative impact, not only on women’s development, but on the development of their societies.”

According to UN estimates, at least one out of every three women in the world is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise physically abused in her lifetime.

The Secretary-General’s campaign seeks to mobilize public opinion and secure resources to tackle the problem, building upon the work being done by women activists and women’s organizations.  The campaign also recognizes the critical role played by men and boys in combating violence against women, and encourages their involvement.

Three shorts produced for DPI’s 21^st Century, a UNTV news magazine, will be screened before the feature film.   Nepal:  Violence against Women, Domestic Violence:   Honduras Fights Back and Rape in Haiti:  Justice at a Crossroad underscore the global nature of gender-based violence.

Following the screenings, there will be a panel discussion with Lisa Jackson, Director, The Greatest Silence;Josephine Odera, Regional Director for Central Africa, United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); and Michelle Materre, Assistant Professor of Media Studies, The New School.

This event is free and open to the general public.

For more information, please contact Joanna Piucci, tel.:  212 963 7346, e-mail:  piucci@un.org or Dina Daoud, tel.: 917 367 1088, e-mail:  daoudd@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record