Baptist Women Host Forum on Violence Against Women

T

he Baptist World Alliance® (BWA) Women’s Department hosted a parallel event during the 57th

session of the United

Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The CSW, established in 1946, is the principal global

policymaking body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. Each year, representatives of member states gather at UN headquarters in New York to evaluate

progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set and formulate

global concrete policies to

promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide. NGOs such as the BWA

sponsor “parallel events” that run concurrently with the sessions held by the UN. The BWA’s panel discussion,

which included women from other faith traditions, focused on issues related to religion and violence against women. It included participants such as Lisa Gelber,

associate dean and rabbi of the Women’s League Seminary Synagogue who has worked on domestic violence projects within the Jewish community; Robina Niaz, a social worker, activist and advocate for Muslim women’s rights; Marie Fortune, pastor in the United Church of Christ in the USA and founder and senior analyst at FaithTrust Institute; Denise Starkey, theologian and professor at the College of St. Scholastica; and Alexia Salvatierra, director of justice for the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who has more than 35 years experience in a variety of social justice ministries. Vi Mundy, fi rst woman Chief for the Ucluelet First Nations in

Canada, shared fi rst hand stories about First Nations’ women and violence. She has been awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for signifi cant contribution and achievement of leading and successfully negotiating a treaty for her tribe.

standards Nancy Murphy, executive director of Northwest Family

Life, a Christian counseling center working with victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, moderated the panel discussion. Murphy, whose parents were Baptist missionaries in British Colombia, Canada, is a professor, therapist and author. Lauran Bethell, an international consultant on issues of

human traffi cking and prostitution who works with International Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA in countries such as Thailand and Netherlands, was facilitator. Bethell received the 2005 BWA Human Rights Award during the Baptist World Congress in Birmingham, England. The parallel session affi rmed a 2006 declaration on violence against women made by religious and spiritual

leaders. The

declaration acknowledged “that violence against women exists in all communities, including our own, and is morally, spiritually and universally intolerable.” Because “our sacred texts, traditions and values have too often been misused to perpetuate and condone abuse,” the religious and spiritual leaders vowed to “commit ourselves to working toward the day when all women will be safe and abuse will be no more.” Declaring that “religious and spiritual traditions compel

us to work for justice and the eradication of violence against women,” the leaders promised to “draw upon our healing texts and practices to help make our families and societies whole,” and called on “people of all religious and spiritual traditions to join us.”

The 18-member BWA delegation was led by Patsy Davis, director of the BWA Women’s Department.

Below: Some members of the the 18-member BWA delegation at the UN parallel event in New York