DAY FOR ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

INTERNATIONAL DAY ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE
AGAINST WOMEN COMMEMORATED WORLDWIDE

www.voanews.com - Yesterday, Nov 25, the day to mark the elimination of all forms of violence against women. In some places the violence is too extended and many atrocities are inflicted to girls and women, for example, in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), there’s been a great deal of news about the rapes which are used as weapons of war. Constant armed conflicts since 1996 have exacerbated the sufferings of the civil population: the majority is women and children. Armed groups continue to massacre villages and rape women in large numbers, sustaining themselves by controlling minerals mines and trading routes. Despite the presence of the world’s largest UN peacekeeping operation, violent conflict never actually ceased in Congo. Hundreds of thousands of women, girls and babies have been literally raped to death and still are, while the world watches in silence. It has been recognized by courts around the world that rape is a method of torture.

Now Congolese women are appealing to ordinary people of conscience throughout the globe to come to our side and join us in bringing an end to the deadliest conflict in the world. Even a cat thrown in a bin sparked outrage and created international headlines. But the media do not report the massacres, rapes, mutilations of Congolese women, so they are requesting - during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women - the support of men and women of the whole world while take the whole world as a witness of what is happening in their country.



All violence against women is reprehensible, whether occurring at home, domestic violence, social or cultural, but much worse is the so-called "sexual violence" that occurred in many countries, such as during the undeclared civil war Peru lived from 1980 to 2000. Rape is often used as a weapon, and it is currently experienced by women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the United Nations, in that country more than 15,000 women were raped during 2009. As long as we are in the grip of the modes of passion and ignorance, we still keep acting as uncivilized āsuras (with demoniac mentality). An uncivilized man can do anything for the satisfaction of his senses, even he can rape girls and women and do not show mercy for anyone.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Who is a woman here may not be a woman there in that higher realm; who is a man here may not be a man there. The body is only a dress. The soul has its mental dress, and according to that, we wear this physical dress, the flesh dress. Sexual identity means the flesh and the mind. In the soul, who will represent which type of sexual identity there, is uncertain at present here in this plane. But women there in the higher realm have a higher prospect, a brighter prospect in the spiritual world. In the spiritual realm, those souls that are female - who have attained that formation of the soul's realization - hold a better and higher position than men. Here in the plane of exploitation, men hold the better position. But there, in the plane of submission and surrender, the female form of mind is more rewarding than the male's form of mind.

Śrīla Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Mahārāja :
“Subjective Evolution of Consciousness”
Chapter Nine: ‘Spiritual Evolution’
http://bvml.org/SBRSM/books/index.html
Bhaktivedanta Memorial Library