25th November

Now that the 25th past we leave some of the photos and descriptions of the activities. Enjoy!

Installation “when daily life objects become arms”:

Installation representing the anonymous victims of Domestic Violence:

The goal of this installation was to alert for the quantity of women still dying because of domestic violence. It took part in the entrance of Green Hours and for this installation we used feminine objects associated to anonymous names, representing a part of the 284 women killed each year by domestic violence in Romania.

Metro-Mask Action:

On the morning of the 25th we entered in the metro wearing white masks. It was an another way for us to express the anonimity of beaten women.
The white masks were also used to highlight the ignorance of society – a further problem that these women have to face. They are anonymous in a society which doesn’t help them. Thus, these masks show that, despite their situation, these women have a life like everybody else, taking public transport, going to work… Indeed, this problem can touch everybody, even if this person appears to feel good.
Because, as the mask symbolises, women hide the fact that they are beaten. They hide it behind a mask, to look like everybody else, to distract attention from the problem of domestic violence that they experience.

Street Actions made in Uniri and Universitate:

Through this street action we wanted to show how the problem of domestic violence is ignored by society. Indeed, domestic violence is often considered as private business, a private problem. Thus women are alone in their struggle against domestic violence, to find solutions to stop this infernal and unbearable situation. Moreover, women themselves feel too ashamed and they don’t dare to speak and to ask for help from outside.
In the street action, the woman suffering domestic violence tries, first of all, to find help and support from her family, but her family fail to support her and accuse her to be the guilty one: in their opinion, the situation is the result of her behaviour. Then she tries to get support from her friends, but they don’t realize, as they are blind to this problem because of their proximity to it. Concerning help from the neighbour, it is again a failure: indeed, even if they are aware of the problem, they can be too frightened to help (afraid of telling social services, for example), and torn between taking action or continuing to consider this problem as a private problem.
The ignorance of “society” at the end, in front of the woman, symbolizes how domestic violence is so often absent and forgotten in our society debates.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Coming from 4 different countries, we all arrived in Bucharest

having different ideas and interpretations of what domestic violence means.
We used the first month to concentrate on research exactly on this topic to also get familiar with local aspects. But it was only after the meeting with the social worker and the coordinator of SensiBlu, a  womens shelter, that we realised
what domestic violence means in Romania.

SensiBlu has a capacity for 3 women and their children, together with an orthodox and another womens shelter the places to stay add up to approximately 12.
12 places for Bucharest and surroundings. Additionaly the organisations have to work without any governmental support and finance their aid entirely with donations.

Assuming one of the worst cases of domestic violence and the police is called in order to interfere either by the victim itself or by a neighbor the chance that they finally interrogate is quite low, due to very unclear legislative regulations. The help from the police would probably stop in front of the closed door, since they don’t know if  breaking it would be justified later. On the other hand it has happend quite
often that women have been charged for being too loud.

It is not only the inactiveness from the executive that makes the situation more difficult but also the disencouragement, when women facing domestic violence finally get themselves to make a report. They would be asked several times if they were perfectly sure of what they are doing, since most women take back their reports a few days later.
Still some make it to SensiBlu or another institution, where they get legislative support, psychological aid and a helping hand in anything they need. As mentioned above the capacity of Bucharest’s womens shelters is limited and in case there are no more free places the workers from SensiBlu try to find other solutions, and so it comes that some women have to stay in homeless shelters without propper protection. They were speaking out of experience when they said, that they do anything possible to have the women stay somewhere, because returning home has ended fatal in some cases.
Concerning legal processing women are having various obstacles in their way. To prove domestic violence for instance a doctors note is not enough, but she would need at least three eye witnesses of the violent act itself. All these things and various others are making legal processing against a violent husband more difficult.

The 25th of November is the international day against violence against women, and we figured that it is the perfect opportunity to start acting.
There will be street actions, street installations and  a movie session.

The first action will be the Metro-Mask Action. Dressed as normal citizens, but wearing a white mask, we will enter the metro  representing any woman suffering domestic violence. The masks stand for the anonymosity of the issue, we will act normally, but in case somebody comes up to us, we will hand out the flyers that we prepared for this day, giving information and contact numbers.

Further we are going to have two street installations, one showing everyday objects which, if placed in the context of domestic violence, can turn into a weapon. And the other one, consisting of feminine objects will be a memorial to the anonymous victims of domestic violence, both who have died and those who are still suffering. A further part of the installation will consist of shoes and a banner, and will represent the struggle women face to assert their place in a male-dominated society. There will also be some poems on display exploring issues connected to the installations.

The second street action, will be more active and different in sight.  Representing different social groups we will reconstruct the situation and surrounding of a woman suffering from domestic violence.

Finally we will have a movie session, we are going to show, “Te doy mis ojos” (Take my eyes). A movie dealing exactly with the issue of domestic violence, without putting it in a sensational context.
This was a very important aspect for us. We didn’t want to try to teach lessons or put women in a victim role and men into the role of an aggressor. What we want is to raise awareness for the topic, we want to spread the word, that something can and has to be done against domestic violence, in order to make sure that a lot of women are no longer referred to as survivors.

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