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S AA Philippine-US Women's Solidarity Mass Organization, est. 1989
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For Immediate Release
19 February 2006GABRIELA NETWORK LOS ANGELES COMMEMORATES INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY THROUGH PROLIFIC FASHION/ART SHOW ENTITLED “(UN)MASQUERADE: EXPOSING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Los Angeles, CA, February 19, 2006– Gabriela Network Los Angeles will honor International Women’s Day with their annual fashion and art show on March 11, 2006. This year’s theme, “(Un)Masquerade: Exposing Violence Against Women” will showcase numerous organizations and artists using masks to depict different forms of violence against women.
“(Un)Masquerade” will be held this year at the Silverlake Adult Day Healthcare Center at 3339 West Temple Street, Los Angeles, CA 90016 from 6pm-10pm. The fashion show will be followed by a reception, which will go on until 2am. On this night we will reclaim the voices of women, victimized by harrowing violence, who have not been heard.
The facts are simply terrifying:
* At least one in every three women, or up to one billion women, have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in their lifetimes. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her.
* In the United States alone, a woman is raped every 90 seconds. Around the world, one in five women will be raped in her lifetime.
* In the Philippines, four U.S. servicemen accused of raping a 22-year-old Filipina have yet to see the inside of a courtroom because of one-sided military agreements between the U.S. and the Philippine governments.
* In Bangladesh 50% of all murders are of women by their partners; in Kenya more than one woman a week was reportedly killed by her male partner.
* More than 135 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation and an additional 2 million girls and women are at risk each year.
* And in the world’s current situation, we can never know the true number of women in Iraq and Afghanistan who have become victims of rape as a weapon of war.
Indeed, the statistics listed above are only fragments of what is really going on, since less than 50% of incidents of violence against women go reported.
(Un)Masquerade” is an extraordinary event that will illustrate the atrocities that women endure in our today’s society through art, fashion, community and education. Gabriela Network-Los Angeles aims to bring together women of different ethnicities, class, and social backgrounds to help us exhibit the state of women in the world.
For press inquiries and more information, please contact Sheri Ventanilla at 310-200-7692 or via email at losangeles@gabnet.org.
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