wfn.org | [ENS] ECW workshop in Spanish focuses on violence

["Mika Larson" <mini_mika@earthlink.net>]

August 5, 2003

ECW workshop in Spanish focuses on violence

Triennial Today
 
[ENS] Spanish-speaking delegates to the 2003 Triennial Meeting and
special guests from Brazil participated in a well-attended workshop,
Violence Against Women, led by Diana Frade. 
Diana Frade has lived in Honduras since 1971 and continues her work in
San Pedro Sula Honduras as the executive director of Our Little Roses
Ministries. Founded 15 years ago, the ministry focuses on caring for
orphaned, abandoned and abused girls. The ministry has a legal advocacy
component for battered and abused women. 

"Women's rights are human rights," said Frade, quoting from Hillary
Clinton's address to the Beijing human rights conference in 1995. Before
viewing Promesas Quebrantadas (Broken Promises), a powerful video on
domestic violence, the participants shared their individual interests
for participating in the workshop.

Broken Promises dealt with religious perspectives centering on domestic
violence that focused on four basic themes: physical, emotional,
economic and sexual violence. In small groups, the participants had an
opportunity to discuss how violence is manifested in couples and to ask,
based on each of the four themes of violence, whether domestic violence
is a private or a social problem. 

After the group discussions, it was concluded that violence against
women is not a problem of two-thirds of the world or of only the poor.
Rather, violence is a problem that crosses all cultural, economic and
social boundaries. 

The first step in eradicating domestic violence is to make society
responsible through systems such as education, health, judicial, media
communication and, most importantly, churches.

What can Episcopal Church Women do at home to support systems that exist
to eradicate abuse against women? "The problem is enormous and we must
not be silent," said Frade. Every nine seconds, she said, a woman is
battered or abused in the United States. "We must be the voice for the
voiceless, those women who live in fear of their lives and those of
their children," she said.