Canada—As part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, November 25, 2021, the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) organized an awareness-raising webinar on how violence against women deeply affects them, affects our children and our society in general.
Ms. Penny Rankin, former president of the Montreal Council of Women, coordinator at the National Council of Women of Canada for the children and youth sector, and active member of the Anglican Church of Canada; Ms. Marie-Paul Ross, MA, Ph.D., CTA; and Mrs. Lily Tadin, President of the Women’s Federation for World Peace - Canada, noted the varieties of violence against women, exposed their nature, and analyzed their causes. They then proposed solutions both in terms of prevention and intervention. All of them emphasized the primordial role that the father and the mother play in the education of boys and girls, and noted the importance of the couple’s relationship.
Brief excerpts are as follows:
Ms. Marie-Paul Ross stated, “To put an end to this human disorder, it is a question of tapping into the source of the Creator. No one is the servant, the aggressor, or the consumer of the other. They are designed, as two different entities, to grow towards the achievement of unity... In this there is no longer room for a dominated and a dominator.”
Mrs. Lily Tadin in her speech entitled “Achieving Domestic Peace: Women as Mediators of Forgiveness, Reconciliation and Development,” opined that the starting point would be our hearts and homes. “A fundamental prerequisite for domestic peace (which is the peaceful governance of the family, a healthy and sustainable coexistence between husband, wife and children), is inner peace, peaceful governance and the interaction of our mind and body.”
Ms. Penny Rankin stated, “Accessibility to pornography for young people has the impact that our society is the incubator of more violence against women. Neurological studies show that pornography has negative impacts on sexual and emotional behavior, on the well-being of children and young people, and that this is directly related to the aggression of boys and the victimization of girls.”
The webinar concluded with a call for everyone to commit to preventing violence against women and exchanges of contact details between organizations and the promise to work together to this end.