Support for women worldwide

Letters

Editor: We are writing in response to the editorial "Friends choosing sides" in the July 12 issue of the Bulletin. Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter has operated a rape crisis line and transition house for the past 25 years. We would like to clarify a few points for readers of the Bulletin. We are front-line, anti-violence workers. Our goal is to end male violence against women. We see ending oppression against all people as implicit in that goal. The side we are always on is that of women's. That would be 52 per cent of the world population. The population that seldom takes up arms. We know that women will bear the heaviest brunt of war, with an increase of sexist violence against them.

The central objective of Rape Relief is to save women's lives and to do so in more ways than one. We respond to more than 1,400 callers each year, and more than 100 women and children stay at our transition house. These women are from all over the world. Women of all ethnic, religious and socio-economic backgrounds group together based on their shared experience of male violence. This shared experience unites women around the world.

Regardless of anyone's political opinon, we expect that and fight so that they will be treated with equality.

Daisy Kler
on behalf of the Vancouver Rape Relief collective

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