“30 Years of Struggle, Resistance, Liberation”

The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre / Multicultural Women Against Rape is pleased to announce its 30th Annual Take Back the Night event happening on Friday October 22, 2010 at Yonge-Dundas Square in the downtown Toronto community.

This year’s theme is:
“30 years of Struggle, Resistance, Liberation”

Take Back the Night is about bringing visibility and exposure to the impact of sexual violence in women’s lives.  We want to highlight every woman’s experience of survivorship from the personal to political impacts in our every day lives.  It is a space created to ensure women and children can take up space and have our voices heard.

Sadly, we have been marching and protesting for 30 years. And although violence against women has been brought into mainstream awareness, it still persists in the lives of women, trans people and children every day.

The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre / Multicultural Women Against Rape has continued to fight the rape culture we live in while providing support to survivors who continue to experience violence. While some laws have been enacted and sexual assaults are taken more seriously in certain contexts, violence has actually become stronger in our culture and implicit violence has become more pervasive.

“Forms of institutional violence like police not believing women, the system of evidence collection in sexual assault cases, raids in our shelters for non-status women, all maintain a culture of violence” says deb singh, Counselor and Activist at the TRCC/MWAR. “We need to see that things haven’t got better, more women are being sexually assaulted and are being silenced every day”.

We demand our rights to safety, and lives free of the fear and perpetration of violence. We demand Aboriginal rights, equal status for all women, safe affordable housing, rights for sex trade workers, de-criminalized prostitution, safe shelters, health care, child care, education, employment, the raising of social assistance rates by 40%, immigration status for all, and the raising the minimum wage now. Without access to a safe place to live, an adequate income, child care and other community resources, women are being left to face violent situations. We, as survivors, demand lives free of sexual violence, murder, living in poverty, police injustice and any violence that is directed towards women and children.

“The TBTN march is an event organized by feminist grassroots, anti-violence & anti-oppression activist groups all around the world with a focus on safety for women and children” says Grissel Orellana, TRCC/MWAR Outreach & Community Development worker.

download media release