Kidman fights for battered women
2008-04-23 11:37
United Nations - Actress Nicole Kidman, seven months pregnant and passionately committed to her other job as a UN goodwill ambassador, urged world leaders and ordinary people to join the global fight to end violence against women.
"One in three women will encounter violence in some way, shape or form against them in their lifetime," Kidman told a news conference on Tuesday at UN headquarters. "That's an extraordinary statistic. Yet do we ever hear it?"
The 40-year-old Australian star became a goodwill ambassador in January 2006 for the UN Development Fund for Women, known as Unifem.
Its acting executive director, Joanne Sandler, said Kidman wanted to focus on an issue "where she could make a difference".
Together, they chose violence against women, which Kidman said is probably the "most widespread human rights violation of our time".
She came to UN headquarters to join Sandler, UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, and UN Foundation President Timothy Wirth to promote Unifem's "Say NO to Violence Against Women" Campaign."
Since the year-long campaign was launched on November 26, Sandler said some 210 000 people have signed an internet "virtual" book to call on world leaders to end impunity for perpetrators, provide services for survivors and, most importantly, invest in prevention.
"Governments are responding," Sandler said. "We are beginning to see decision-makers sign on ... The whole cabinet of Senegal, led by President (Abdoulaye) Wade, signed on to the campaign in March."
'Top priority'
Kidman urged people of all nations to add their names and demand "that ending violence against women be made a top priority for governments everywhere."
She also encouraged the private sector to contribute to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, which provides grants for programs in the developing world to help fight the scourge.
Has Kidman made a difference?
"I don't think it's a coincidence that in the time that Nicole Kidman has been championing this, the UN Trust Fund's resources have more than tripled" to $15m, Sandler said.
"But this is far too little," she said. "The Trust Fund receives requests well in excess of $100m annually and could easily attract far greater requests."
In January, the UN Foundation said it would donate $1 to the fund for each of the first 100 000 signatures - and Wirth said he was happy to pay up.
Kidman told reporters that Sandler believes the "Say NO" campaign can get 10 million signatures to target lawmakers.
Progress
Sandler pointed to progress: 89 countries have laws on domestic violence, more than 100 have made rape a crime, 90 have provisions against sexual harassment, and 93 on human trafficking. But there are 192 UN member states.
Migiro noted that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a global campaign in February to intensify efforts to end violence against women in peacetime and war.
"This simply shows that we can only confront this problem by working together across gender, across geography, across ethnicity," she said.
Kidman said the issue "is still shrouded in shame and silence".
"What we're trying to do is say this is not something that has a stigma attached to it. ... This is something we can talk about in communities, in countries, that we can help, that we can get laws implemented."
"I'm seven months pregnant so I'm sort of lying low at the moment," she said, but "if there were certain parliaments that would do these public signings (supporting Unifem's campaign), then I would be willing to get on a plane and go and say thank you - and bring whatever attention I can bring ... within my own health restraint."
Kidman is expecting her first child with country singer husband Keith Urban; she has two adopted children with first husband Tom Cruise.
'Solution-based'
She said she was attracted to Unifem because its programmes were "solution-based" and because she was raised by a mother who is a feminist and a nurse and a father who is a psychologist.
As a child, she said, she would accompany her mother to the hospital where she saw people who were suffering which "leaves a powerful imprint on your psyche".
"Obviously, I'm emotionally connected to this," Kidman said of her Unifem role. "I think it's very important."
"At the same time, I'm a mother. I have a child on the way ... and a lot of it is realising the things that are wrong and ... (what) I can contribute to help my children have a better life, and to help other children around the world have a better life."
She smiled broadly when asked about being back at the UN.
In 2005, she starred in the movie The Interpreter, a thriller in which she played a UN interpreter caught up in a cloak-and-dagger assassination attempt.
- AP