"We rise up on behalf of our mothers and sisters all over the world."

The following is the complete text of a speech delivered by Lotus Outreach Board Member Kathryn Gessner at the One Billion Rising event at Shasta College in Redding, California. For more information on this event, please visit http://www.redding.com/news/2013/feb/14/shasta-college-hosts-local-one-billion-rising/.

Welcome to One Billion Rising at Shasta College.  This is a global event, a global happening on behalf of women.  197 countries are participating in today’s global street party, because we must!  Women need to speak out about the horrific events happening on the planet – we need to be fierce as we rise and say stop!  Stop the violence!  In recent weeks in India, a woman was gang-raped and murdered on a bus in New Dehli.  India’s women took to the streets in protest, raising awareness that this situation—such lack of safety—is unacceptable.  All over the globe, the shocking details of violence specifically against women are reported; even the Record Searchlight here in Redding devoted an entire Sunday section to the horrors of violence against women in our community.  Such violence is a threat to economic stability and global human happiness everywhere.  It is for this reason that we gather today to dance, speak out, and stop the violence.

I am Kathryn Gessner, and I teach English here at Shasta College.  I also serve on an international board of directors for an organization called Lotus Outreach International.  As an educator and an advocate, I am committed to active work, to stop the violence against women.

Lotus Outreach International works in Cambodia and in India to prevent violence through education and social advocacy, and to help women who are victims of human trafficking, rape, forced sex work and domestic violence, to rebuild their lives.

In Cambodia, women and girls experience daily threats to their safety and economic and financial security.  They can be kidnapped or forced to leave their home!  I have witnessed first hand the effects of human trafficking.  When I toured Cambodia, our Lotus Outreach Board was able to meet two girls who had been trafficked from their village rice farm and taken against their will to a brothel in Bangkok, Thailand, where they were held captive, drugged, and sold repeatedly as virgins – their captors stitched them up each time and sold them again.

Their story was both devastating and realistic, a complete eye-opener for all of us, for the work we need to do.

Cambodia is a source, transit and destination country for children and adults trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Economic hardships can lead parents to sell their own child into the sex industry as early as five years of age.  Khmer and Vietnamese women and girls (mostly from rural areas) are trafficked into the commercial sex trade, often ending up in tourist destinations such as Siem Reap, Sihanouvkville, and Phnom Penh or in other countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.  Extreme poverty like this—that forces children into sex work--is hard for us to imagine.

The inferior status of women in Cambodia perpetuates the level of sexual violence against women and girls. Women and girls must follow the command of their husbands and fathers for fear of being abused or beaten.  Making this brutal situation worse, there is a widely-held belief in Southeast Asia that sexual intercourse with a virgin can rejuvenate, bring luck, and increase longevity.  The threat of HIV/AIDS may also increase the attraction to children as sexual assault victims since they are less likely to be previously infected.  Girls robbed of their virginity are stigmatized, especially in rural areas, and often unable to marry due to social disapproval.  These types of philosophies and cultural norms interfere with gender equality efforts. 

• Lotus Outreach International works to find solutions to these problems by helping victims and their children.  Our Consoling Through Counseling program is specifically designed to help victims recover a sense of dignity and find meaningful work and a healthy living situation. Consoling Through Counseling uses cognitive-behavioral therapy designed to reduce the post-traumatic stress these victims suffer.  Clients are provided legal assistance and literacy and skills training courses to help them reintegrate into society. 
• Lotus Outreach’s reintegration program helps women get back on their feet and recover their self-worth.  We provide financial support and small business grants so that women can gain financial independence, and we encourage victims to courageously pursue legal action against their perpetrators.  In the last year, we put 14 child rapists behind bars!
• Lotus Outreach has been proactive in prevention of trafficking.  We run a program along the border between Cambodia and Thailand called SMART which stands for Safe Migration and Reduction of Trafficking.  Specifically, we warn and educate individuals who cross the border about the dangers that they may face, and we educate them on the least dangerous migration practices.

In India, the site of recent protests, numerous high-profile media reports indicate large numbers of girls being trafficked into Dehli from the Gumla District of Jharkland.  Lotus Outreach advocates against the physical and psychological effects of assaults, battery, burns, rape, forced labor and other forms of violence, including trafficking of women and girls, has hindered women’s economic progress. 

Lotus Outreach has been incorporating social advocacy and reduction of trafficking techniques into India’s danger zones, especially rural villages. Our Blossom Bus provides safe travel to school for girls of school-going age, and Lotus Outreach is working with village school boards to establish safe travel to schools throughout village communities in the Haryana district.

Many of you have heard what happened in New Dehli recently, when a young woman riding the bus home from work was gang-raped and murdered.  This tragic event grieved us all and steeled our resolve at the same time.  To help.  As a protest broke out on behalf of women, and women took to the streets in Dehli, Glenn Fawcett, our Lotus Outreach Director of Field Operations was there.  Glenn wrote about this event in a letter for our January newsletter, and I want to quote some of his remarks today.  Glenn reported:

“’Didi’ (meaning “sister” in Hindi) and her family had to overcome many limitations, expectations, and prejudices to escape their small village in pursuit of a better life in Delhi. Didi was on the cusp of realizing her dream of becoming a physiotherapist, when the bright star of her life was tragically snuffed out.

Through this unfathomable event, India lost more than a future doctor; it lost a role model for the country’s 594 million women and girls, the vast majority of whom hail from rural areas and poor backgrounds just like Didi. An 18 year-old cousin in Didi’s home village defiantly stated, “I will study physiotherapy in the same college as Didi and work in Delhi. I fear for my life after what happened to her, but there’s enough courage in me. Her death has made me more determined.” Remarks like these underscore the [galvanizing] effect of Didi’s fortitude and determination, and proves that her dedication to mentoring other girls in her village was worthy and [made an impact]. The tragedy of her brutal gang rape and murder on a moving bus is greatly deepened in view of her exceptional achievements and the influence she had on those around her ….

Of all the cases reported and unreported, for some reason Didi’s tragic end hit a chord with the Indian public, and all of the shortfalls that make India an unsafe place for women are now under a microscope. If the pressure is sustained, I believe it will result in an array of reforms that will go some way toward mending all that is broken and make India a safer place for women. I am also sure that of the tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands that took to the streets to mourn Didi’s passing across the country, many young girls and women will have further honed a steely determination not to be cowed by the threat of violence hanging over them. Instead, it is my great hope that this public outcry will lead them to demand a just and equitable society for women, and a society in which they can achieve whatever their heart’s desire.”

We are here today in honor of Didi and all the women on the planet.  The security and safety of women is our cause, both here and abroad.  In Shasta County, where Redding has been rated one of the most unsafe communities for women in the entire United States, we plan to bring an end to domestic violence, trafficking, and rape.  Let us wrap the world in the love that we mothers and sisters know is our birthright.  All races, nations, and religions.  We acknowledge the pain, suffering, economic and personal degradation of women in our time; and we seek a better world through this collective movement. We rise up on behalf of our mothers and sisters all over the world.


Kathryn has served on the Lotus Outreach Board of Directors since 2005. She teaches composition, literature, and creative writing at Shasta College in Redding, California as a tenured English instructor. At Shasta, she runs the Distinguished Visiting Authors series and serves on the Sustainability Committee.