One Billion Rising

**One Billion Rising** is a global movement, started by Eve Ensler, to end rape and sexual violence against women. The "billion" is the number of women who will be raped or beaten in their lifetime.  According to the United Nations, the number is one in three women, or about one billion.

## Beginning

The campaign was started by playwright and activist Eve Ensler.  Ensler wrote the play _The Vagina Monologues_). She started the organization V-Day. The idea for the organization came from the Todd Akin 'legitimate rape' and pregnancy comment controversy. Ensler was shocked at Akin's statement. She wrote an open letter in answer.

### 2012

In 2012, the One Billion Rising campaign resulted in the biggest mass global action to end violence against women ever.  There were tens of thousands of events.

By September 20, 2012, people from 160 countries had signed up to take part in the campaign.

Around 5,000 organizations joined the campaign.  The campaign was supported by  religious ministers, movement builders, actors Rosario Dawson and Robert Redford, and Stella Creasy, a British Labour Co-operative politician.

Anoushka Shankar, a classical musician from India, made a video message dedicated to Jyoti Singh. Singh was the Indian student who died in December after she was gang-raped by six men on a Delhi bus.  In the video, Shankar said she was abused by a trusted friend of her parents over several years when she was a child. In her message she said she did not believe she will ever recover from the abuse she had suffered: "...as a woman I find I'm frequently living in fear, afraid to walk along at night, afraid to answer a man who asks for the time, afraid I'm going to be judged or treated in ways based on the way I might choose to dress or the make up I might choose to wear, and you know, enough is enough. I'm rising for women like Jyoti, for women like her, with the amazing women of my country I'm rising for the child in me who I don't think will ever fully recover from what happened to her."

### 2013

On February 14, 2013, there were rallies in more than 190 countries. The one-day event happened after a call for one billion women around the world to join together to dance in a show of group strength. The activities were on the 15th anniversary of the V-Day movement. The word "billion" refers the number that one in three women will be raped or beaten in their lifetime, or about one billion.

### 2014

**One Billion Rising for Justice** was in February 2014. Bollywood Superstar Aamir Khan, who talked about such issues on his TV Show Satyamev Jayate,  supported One Billion Rising Campaign in New Delhi. In Los Angeles, a number of events protested violence against women soldiers and prisoners. Many famous people participated, including Jane Fonda, Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei, and Dylan McDermott.

### 2015

In 2015, the name was **One Billion Rising Revolution**.  More than 200 countries planned to participate. In Italy, more than 100 cities planned events. All 34 provinces of Afghanistan planned events.

Kimberlé Crenshaw, famous Critical Race Theory figure and professor at UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, supported One Billion Rising to help create awareness of the difficulties girls of color face in New York and Boston schools. These issues include the school-to-prison pipeline, stereotyping, and the difference in suspension reasons and numbers compared to white girls (the rates being 10 times higher than for white girls).

## Global coordinators

- Monique Wilson – Director
- Abha Bhaiya / Sangat South Asian Feminist Network – India
- Amy Oyekunle – Nigeria
- Andres Naime – Mexico
- Anne-Christine d'Adesky – Haiti
- Colani Hlatjwako – Swaziland
- Dianne Madray – Caribbean: St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad, Guyana
- Fahima Hashim – Sudan
- Fartuun A. Adan – Somalia
- Iman Aoun – Palestine
- Isatou Touray – The Gambia
- Jason Day – Peru
- Jessica Montoya – Santa Fe, United States
- Kamla Bhasin / Sangat South Asian Feminist Network – South Asia
- Karabo Tshikube – South Africa
- Khushi Kabir – Bangladesh
- Lindsey Horvath – Los Angeles, United States
- Marsha Pamela Lopez Calderon – Central and South America
- Marya Meyer – Miami, United States
- Mily Trevino-Sauceda / Alianza Nacional De Campesinas – Farmworkers in the United States and Mexico
- Naomi N. Mwaura – Kenya
- Nico Corradini – Italy
- Nyasha Sengayi – Zimbabwe
- Rada Boric – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Sloveni

## Related pages

- 2012 Delhi gang rape case

## Other websites

- Official website
- One Billion Rising at the website  for the V-Day movement
- List of cooperating organizations
- Endorsement video message by Robert Redford at _the Guardian_ newspaper website
- September 24, 2012 video interview with Eve Ensler at _Democracy Now!_
- February 14, 2013 video interview with Eve Ensler at _Democracy Now!_

## Infobox (organization)

- **name**: One Billion Rising
- **image**: One-mile-for-one-billion-rising.jpg
- **motto**: Strike, Dance, Rise!
- **leader title**: Founder
- **leader name**: Eve Ensler
- **leader title2**: Director
- **leader name2**: Monique Wilson
- **website**: [http://onebillionrising.org/ onebillionrising.org]