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21st Annual Community Gathering to Raise
Awareness of Violence against Women and Calls Community to
Solidarity
Special to The Truth
On Saturday, April 18, 2015, hundreds of people from
throughout northwest Ohio will gather at the UAW Local 12
Union Hall on Ashland Ave, for Toledo’s 21st Annual
Take Back the Night event. Several anti-racist events are
being held in Toledo on April 18; Take Back the Night stands
in solidarity with those events and invites all to join us
or any of the other events happening in Toledo that day.
The event opens at 6 p.m. with a resource fair featuring the
Clothesline Project, more than 200 shirts created by local
survivors of violence against women, the Silent Witness
Project, a group of silhouettes honoring northwest Ohio
women who have been murdered by their partners or former
partners, and the Bandanna Project, which arises awareness
to end sexual violence against farmworker and immigrant
women in the workplace. A community rally starts at 7 p.m.
with speakers and musicians addressing violence against
women, followed by a women’s march, a women’s survivor
speak-out, and a men’s program.
Take Back the Night events are held in communities around the
world. In Toledo, Take Back the Night takes place in a
different neighborhood each year, demonstrating that
violence against women happens everywhere. The goals of TBTN
are to raise awareness about violence against women, to
support survivors of violence against women, and to
emphasize that everyone has a role in creating a community
free of violence. By walking in the streets together to take
back the night, women are also symbolically taking back
their homes and lives from violence.
“Take Back the Night reminds us that for too many women, neither
homes nor streets are safe places,” says Diane Docis, a
member of the TBTN organizing collective. “Millions of
women are stalked every year. A woman is battered, usually
by a male partner, every 15 seconds. One in six women in
the U.S. have survived rape or attempted rape--more than 80
percent committed by a perpetrator who knows the victim.
And even women who haven’t survived violence must live
everyday with the threat of violence. By taking back the
night, we are saying, ‘Enough. This is unacceptable.
’”
The rally is followed by a one-mile women’s march through the
neighborhood around the union hall. The Women’s March
returns to the UAW Local 12 Union Hall for a women’s
survivor speak-out in which survivors of violence against
women share their stories. During the women’s
march and speak-out, men are invited to attend a men’s
program to discuss how they can work to end violence.
The event is sponsored by community groups, social service
agencies, UT Feminist Alliance and university departments.
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