V-Day Annual Report 2017 - RISE FOR WOMEN WORKERS 1 | Page 2

WELCOME
TO OUR
2016 2017
ANNUAL REPORT
This year is beyond comparison in our 19 years of work. The assent of a
known sexual predator to the US Presidency alongside the emergence of
other anti-women, anti-people leaders and governments around the world not
only crystallized everything our movement has been working towards since
1998, but also galvanized our activists in an unprecedented way as they took
to the stage and the streets in the face of policies and actions that sought to
strip their basic rights and call into question their experiences.
With sharper focus on the rising and resistance against the systems that cause
other forms of violence - imperialism, neo-facism, racism, capitalism and
neo-liberalism – activists in our College and Community campaigns and One
Billion Rising’s Solidarity Against the Exploitation of Women campaign took
up their struggle against sexual and physical violence, expanding their frame
to focus on interconnected issues facing the most vulnerable: workers rights,
immigration, poverty, racial violence, corruption, environmental plunder, state
sponsored wars, militarization, displacement, and violence created by greed
and lack of access to healthcare and education. At the City of Joy and in
places like Afghanistan, women sowed seeds of inner and societal revolution.
You will see in the following pages expanded coverage of the work taking
place through the V-Day and One Billion Rising movements, and on the
ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the City of Joy.
Join us as together we RISE in Solidarity to demand an end to the exploitation
of all women and girls (cis, transgender and gender non-conforming),

Eve Ensler
Susan Celia Swan