We Could Perform A Miracle If We Acted Upon Facts!

Happy #OrangeDay my friends!

A day assigned for ending violence against women and girls can’t be other than happy despite the serious reasons that led to the idea. The fact that this day and every 25^th of each month is announced by United Nations as a day for highlighting the issue just demonstrates the seriousness of the problem. Every 25^th of each month!

1 in 3 women will be raped or beaten in her life-time. Only that statistic is alarming not mentioning that even more women will experience some kind of harassment or other form of violence – physical or psychological.

Alcohol use is a triggering and persevering factor in the phenomenon of violence against women and IOGT International is spreading this message and encourages people, NGOs and governments to look at the issue of violence from the perspective of alcohol use and to take action. Our work brings evidence to what common sense has been telling us for ages that by reducing alcohol use, violence in communities decreases significantly. Knowing this, why not to join our cause to make each 25th of each month an alcohol free day?

I am very happy to see that the idea is spreading. Our Secretary General Esbjörn has just recently presented it at the 7^th National Alcohol Conference in Bangkok.

Our member organizations have taken the cause for theirs and disseminate the message as well. We have started producing posters and we will be happy to receive your photos that will then be branded by IOGT International and our common message: “Together we end violence against women. Together we stop excusing alcohol violence.”

We have also started a profile on the UN’s webpage SayNO UNiTE created especially for the Orange day campaign and we encourage you to support our cause on that page by adding your name to it.

If we put two facts together: 1 billion women of this world will be raped or beaten in their life-time and up to 80% of violence against women and girls is alcohol related, we have found a simple, effective, magic formula to reduce violence against 700 000 000 women.

There are many problems and diseases human beings work hard to find a cure to. There is lots of money invested into research for healing cancer, HIV/AIDS, diabetes. There are diseases we have no solutions for although they have been troubling us for ages on daily basis just look at malaria or simple flu. We are sweating trying to find solutions. On the other hand we have a solution to make 700 000 000 women safe and free by simpler and less costly action than swinging a magic wand and only very few react upon it. Isn’t it remarkable?

Making today’s #OrangeDay and alcohol free day, to contribute with your own actions to reducing alcohol use is something you and your NGO can do and you can tell your government to ban alcohol marketing, to increase the prices of alcohol and to decrease the numbers of outlets selling alcohol, because the less alcohol is consumed in your society, the lower are the numbers of violence against women and girls.

That’s why I am incredibly happy and proud that IOGT International will already next week participate in CSW57 and contribute to the debates on “Ending all forms of violence against women and girls”. We will as well hold our own parallel event on “The forgotten factor behind gender based violence” where we will highlight the importance of considering prevention of alcohol use when working hard on preventing violence against women and girls.

Together we stop excusing alcohol violence.

Happy Orange day my friends! Each of you can contribute to ending this colossal problem striking such a huge part of this world population! Thank you for joining us, make it happy and cheers!