Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The 25th November was officially endorsed in 1999 by the UN as an international day to mark the violence experienced by women across the world. Women's activists have marked 25 November as a day against violence since 1981.

Today, women's charities and government have announced lots of different campaigns and initiatives against violence. Of particular note is the government announcement that all children will be taught that domestic violence is unacceptable, the new campaign from refuge - www.fourwaystospeakout.com and the charity single launched by womens aid today - www.womensaid.org.uk/takemyhand. 

Women's groups across the country have also organised a fantastic array of events to mark today. For example, yesterday I was in Derby where they had arranged a range of stalls from local women's support groups in the student union - www.derbywomen.co.uk. If you have been up to something in your union, please do let me know.

The women's campaign has also been organising lots in the run up to today. We have launched our survey - www.nus.org.uk/vaw, we have released new posters and we have been organising a big student presence at the reclaim the night march, which was on Saturday. More can be read about all of our activities here - http://www.officeronline.co.uk//women/articles/276809.aspx.

The reclaim the night march on Saturday was a huge success. During the course of the day, we collected well over 100 statements and photos from people willing to stand up and speak out against violence against women. Watch this space for films, photos and more from the march.

I was honoured to speak at the rally after the march. I have copied the full text of my speech below for those who are interested:

What a night..

Didn’t it feel incredible marching out there tonight?

Didn’t it fill you with hope?

With power?

It is on nights like this that each of us realise how strong we are together. What we can achieve as a movement.

Together, we have taken over, we have shut down the streets.

Streets that should be a safe space for women every Saturday night.. But streets that actually represent the front-line of a war against women’s bodies.

Streets on which we have no choice but to feel afraid.

Tonight we recall the foundation of the Reclaim the Night Movement.

An era when the Yorkshire Ripper terrorised entire communities.

Where women were told not to leave home without a man to protect them.

And yet, 30 years on women are still expected to take responsibility for male violence.

We are told that we are careless if we walk home alone. Provocative if we wear a short skirt. To blame if we are raped after we have been drinking.

Well, I’ll tell you something... These are OUR streets.

It is our RIGHT to walk them and be SAFE.

It is not women who are at fault.

When we walk the streets our bodies become public property.

Commercial objects to be floated on the patriarchal stock exchange.

Objectification that extends in to every corner of our lives.

Young women are faced with lads mags in their student shops, strippers in their unions and sexism in the lecture theatre.

And, We thought that we’d seen the last of beauty pageants, but they are coming back to our colleges and universities, placing women in competition with women.

on pre-packaged beauty that is based on male fantasy rather than female reality.

It is young women who are bearing the brunt of this new, insidious, commercial, sex object sexism. And it is young women who are fighting back.

Women’s societies, young feminist activists, bloggers, thinkers are standing against objectification. They are proving that when people say feminism is dying that they could not be more wrong.

Tonight we stand in solidarity with all our sisters who can’t be here. The 104 women who were killed last year and every year at the hand of their male partner. The thousands more who are trapped in abusive, controlling and violent relationships who haven’t yet found their way out.

We remember the women who have nowhere to turn, women whose experience of life is full of fear.

I’m really proud tonight to be able to launch the NUS Women’s Campaign’s Survey in to Women Students’ Experience of Violence. This will be the first ever national survey to explore the impact of violence on women students. I’m also proud to say that our report will look specifically at the experiences of trans women and violence.

What defines us as a movement is our solidarity, solidarity in spite of our great diversity.

Solidarity with sisters paid less than a living wage, oppressed by class as well as gender.

Solidarity with sisters who face double discrimination, triple discrimination.

Solidarity with women across the world who experience the most horrific crimes against their bodies.

Sometimes, we cannot even begin imagine the suffering of our sisters. But we can stand with them. We will stand with them.

Tonight, we are here to fight for a new reality for ourselves and for our sisters.

Where our bodies are our own, not public property.

Where women are not dying every day because of male violence.

Where the thousands of women who are raped can have some hope of justice.

A reality where we are no longer afraid.

Tonight we remember the strength of our solidarity.

Tomorrow, we take the power we have reclaimed tonight - and we fight.

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