The Carmelites of Australia and Timor-Leste remember the 25th of each month as “Orange Day”, a day to raise awareness and take action to eliminating violence against women and girls (VAWG) around the world. As a bright and optimistic colour, orange represents a future free from violence against women and girls.

The UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women campaign (UNiTE), is a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls (VAWG) around the world. Managed by UN Women, UNiTE calls all to wear the colour orange, mobilize people and raise awareness, and take action to prevent and end VAWG, not only once a year, on 25 November (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women), but every month.

The UNiTE campaign has proclaimed the 25th of each month as “Orange Day”, a day to raise awareness and take action to end VAWG. As a bright and optimistic colour, orange represents a future free from violence against women and girls.

Did you know?

• 1 in 3 women and girls experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, most frequently by an intimate partner.
• 137 women are killed by a member of their family every day.
• Fewer than 40 per cent of the women who experience violence seek help of any sort.
• In Australia, one in two women have experienced being sexual harassed, and women are almost three times more likely than men to have experienced violence inflicted by a partner since the age of fifteen.
• Family violence and/or intimate partner violence is the leading cause of serious injury, disability and death for women in Australia. On average, one woman a week is killed by her intimate male partner.
• 1 in 5 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women aged 15 and over has experienced physical violence in a 12-month period.
• Migrant and refugee women can be subjected to forms of violence that relate to their uncertain citizenship, where perpetrators threaten them with deportation or withhold access to passports., and can also be subject to violence from an extended range of perpetrators, including in-laws and siblings
• Domestic or family violence is a leading driver of homelessness for women.

“Since mothers bestow life, and women keep the world [together], let us all make greater efforts to promote mothers and to protect women.
How much violence is directed against women. Enough. To hurt a woman is to insult God, who from a woman took on our humanity – not through an angel, not directly, but through a woman.”
- Pope Francis

Prayer

Loving God, you made each of us in your image and likeness.
Open our eyes to recognise one another as equals,
replacing domination and control, violence, and abuse,
with mutuality, reciprocity, respect, and freedom.
Help us to love like you.
Jesus Christ, you rejected the use of religious traditions
to justify violence.
Teach us to unmask manipulations of our faith used
to justify violent, abusive, or coercive behaviour.
Teach us to be people who show tenderness,
respect and care for others as you did.
Holy Spirit, you are with us always, showing us the way.
Move us to assist those who experience violence and
abuse, and support their call for justice.
Empower us to hold perpetrators of violence and abuse
responsible, encouraging them to change their behaviour.
AMEN