This Valentine’s Day, a Tony Award-winning playwright aims to give women far more than flowers and candy.
Eve Ensler, creator of “The Vagina Monologues,” will team up with metro Atlanta activists on Friday for the second annual V-Day in Grant Park to raise money and awareness for organizations fighting violence against women.
Atlanta and a number of cities across the world are holding similar events on the same day.
The Rev. Bernice King, an activist and daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Laura Turner Seydel, an environmentalist and philanthropist, and Stephanie Davis, the executive Director of Georgia Women for a Change, will participate.
“I see women and children as the heart and soul of every society. We have got to find a way to turn the tide and eradicate the violence against women and children,” King said.
A “Stop Human Trafficking March” will begin at Ebenezer Baptist Church and make its way to Grant Park, where participants will have time to interact and reflect. Sex trafficking is one of the issues to be addressed, as the FBI has named Atlanta one of the cities in the nation with the highest rate of child sex trafficking. Some of the women who will march have been victims of rape and domestic abuse.
The first Atlanta march and event in 2013 attracted thousands.
Last year, participants in 207 countries joined in a dance simultaneously, and more than 30,000 viewers watched online via Live Stream. That is expected to happen again Friday as those in Grant Park join in a dance choreographed by three-time Emmy Award winner Debbie Allen to the group’s global anthem “Break the Chain,” written by Grammy-winning music writer and producer Tena Clark.
More than 190 countries have signed up for V-Day 2014, organizers said. Advocates in Haiti will focus on female justice, South Africans will rise to end “corrective rape” against lesbians, and participants in Bangladesh will lobby for legislation to protect women.
“(Ensler) wanted this to reach all corners of the world to bring like-minded people out for a day of thought and action,” Seydel said.
“As a mother of two teen girls, when I think about what is going on in Atlanta, I imagine this could be my own daughters,” she said. “It’s unthinkable, and we need to help those women and girls get to a safe place to heal.”
King said she is especially excited about V-Day “because it’s a global initiative and there are many different entities and organizations connected.”
“I know that part of the success of my fathers’ movement was the collaboration … between different organizations and entities,” King said.
Seydel agreed. “There is power in numbers.”
The United National Statistic Division estimates lifetime rates of violence against women can range from more than 10 percent in developed countries such as France to more than 60 percent in Third World countries such as Zambia.
“There are some things in this world we should never adjust to, we should never get comfortable with,” King said.
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