By Steven G. Ogden
On Sunday 5 December, Cathedral Evensong at 6pm will be an opportunity for us to lament past acts of domestic violence and commit ourselves anew to working for the protection and empowerment of women and children.
This builds on our Synod’s adoption of the National Church’s 10 Commitments.
The service will begin with a statement from the Archbishop addressing gender-based violence.
The Rev’d Dr Joan Riley will be preaching, and our Family and Domestic Violence working group (FDV) will be participating.
The diocesan Survivor Advocate, Sharon Lockwood, has recently joined the working group, and she will also be participating in the service.
The timing of the service is during the 16 Days of Activism, which is a global campaign that commences on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and ends on 10 December, International Human Rights Day.
The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness about the problem of gender-based violence and highlight the positive role that we can play in preventing violence and building better communities.
You can find faith-based resources for the 16 Days of Activism here.
Dr Steven G. Ogden is Research Fellow Centre for Public and Contextual Theology at Charles Sturt University. His latest book Violence, Entitlement, and Politics explores the problem of gender-based violence by focusing on violent male subjects and the issue of entitlement.
