On March 27 1995 in Kenya, seven special branch police officers arrived at the house of Mary Muragwa looking for her husband. Unable to find him, they beat Mary who had given birth to her sixth child just over a month earlier. Mary fell, breaking her arm in three places. She said she was raped in her house by two of the police officers. Violence against women is endemic in Kenya, says an Amnesty International brochure.

Does this sound like something that happens only in impoverished Third World countries? Wrong.

In Malaysia, police recently completed investigations into the alleged rape of two female detainees at the Ampang police lock-up. The investigation, according to a report in The Malay Mail , recommended that a constable who was on guard duty on the day of the alleged incident, be charged with rape. The constables supervisor, a corporal who was also on duty that day, is facing a charge of abetting the constable. Police are investigating an allegation that a third policeman, believed to be a lance corporal sold one of the detainees to a pimp.

(A Filipina and an Indonesian woman had lodged a report last month claiming they were raped in a room next to the cell at the Ampang police lock-up.)

In Malaysia, too, last month, a 22-year-old factory worker was gang-raped by three men who robbed her of RM50 before sending her back to the factory where she worked. The men on motorcycles had claimed to be policemen. They were bogus and one of them was arrested soon after the crime.

In the late 1990s Malaysian social workers came across a female child who was raped repeatedly by her father. She was removed from their care only to end up in juvenile rehabilitation centre for two years. The social workers who rescued her were not given access to her. Only her family would be given access, they were told. Her family was, of course, her rapist father and clueless mother.

Global campaign

It is so difficult for women to come out and report rape due to the stigma that goes with it, more so if it is a crime involving incest.

Its difficult to work with a state that treats all girls and women as femme fatale , Zaitun Kasim, an activist on womens issues, said in reference to lackadaisical state-run welfare agencies.

Be it in cities in Malaysia or the backwaters of Kenya, violence against women is being perpetrated every day in every corner of the globe.

For every rape that is reported in Malaysia, nine go unreported, said Zaitun, who spoke at the private presentation of The Vagina Monologues by Amnesty International Malaysia recently.

Thousands of women are killed and injured each year in deliberate acts of violence, said Amnesty International Malaysia co-ordinator Josef Roy Benedict in a brochure introducing the play.

In response to the persistent torture of women and girls on a daily basis across the globe, Amnesty International launched the International Month of Student Action on Feb 14 with the theme Violence Against Women, inviting AI youth activists from all over the world to raise awareness about violence against women by linking with the International V-Day College Campaign.

Since 1998, hundreds of colleges and universities around the world have produced benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues . The campaign raises awareness while inspiring a new generation and a violence-free future. And this year, more than 500 colleges are participating; one of them, the HELP College of Kuala Lumpur, produced the AI staging.

And those brave enough to attend the play learnt a little more about the suffering that women go through in the name of tradition...traditions that subjugate them.

V for ?

At a dialogue following the monologues, Zaitun asked what the V in V-Day meant. The crowds responses range from violence (against women), victory (for women), vagina, virgin to the vampish va-voom and — from a male audience — vasectomy.

The last interpretation drew appreciative laughter from the audience for it was also relevant to the topic under discussion As Zaitun pointed out, vasectomy is a minor operation in which a man can walk out soon after compared with hysterectomy which requires hospitalisation. Yet men expect women to go through hysterectomy rather than lose their manhood.

There is still a lot of work to be done women around the world, said Zaitun, who has met women from Nigeria who have had their genitals mutilated in the name of tradition.

In Malaysia, she came across a 55-year-old lady who had her clitoris removed.

The clitoris is deemed a useless organ, as its function appears to be solely for the purpose of pleasure.

In the play, a presenter tells us in an encyclopaedic-like manner that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings, twice the amount in the penis. In the next breath, she says, Who needs a hand gun when you have a semi-automatic? — much to the appreciation of the audience.

Later, Zaitun explained that women are also many times more susceptible to sexually-transmitted diseases. Even if she has only one partner, a woman is more susceptible, she said, because unlike the male sexual organ — the penis, which is predominantly skin — the vagina is mainly membrane that can rupture easily.

And its so much harder to negotiate with a man to put on a condom, because of the common retort, Oh, so you dont trust me.

These issues are just the tip of the iceberg that sexuality is. There is a deafening silence when it comes to the issue of sexuality. This silence has done much damage, said Zaitun.

The Vagina Monologues addresses the silence that surrounds the issue of sexuality.

And thats why it pisses me off when they try to impose a ban on the play, she said.

Who is Eve Ensler?

The smashing and shocking play was written by Eve Ensler, a theatre author, an activist and a journalist.

Born and bred in New York City, Ensler was sexually abused by her father till the age of 10. Her mother, who knew this, was too afraid to speak up.

Ensler interviewed women from around the world about a taboo subject — the vagina, resulting in The Vagina Monologues , a daring and intricate balance of Enslers vision, compassion and brutally honest exploration.

The play ran for two years in New Yorks Off-Broadway theatres.

Ensler is the recipient of numerous awards including the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Playwriting, the Jury Award for Theater at the US Comedy Arts Festival, the Amnesty International Media Spotlight Award for Leadership, and the Obie Award, the Off-Broadway Theater Awards in the United States.

Her book, The Vagina Monologues , is an exploration on female self-realisation, an affectionate request for all women to find their own way to fulfil themselves. Old ladies and girl, singles, wives, lesbians, professors, women workers, actresses, prostitutes were asked by Ensler about their vaginas. Their different experiences and modes of expression give an alive variety to the book.

Ensler conceived the V-Day movement — of which she is also artistic director — when she realised that she had to do something to stop worldwide violence against women and girls.