SPEAKING at the Gwent WI Service at St Mary’s Priory Church in Abergavenny, on the UN Day on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Canon Mark Soady has taken up the challenge for men to speak out

Canon Soady also praised the WI for its nine years of campaigning to ensure the end of violence against women against a background which sees some three million women believed to face domestic violence, experience rape, forced marriage, sexual exploitation and other forms of violence and abuse each year and a staggering one in three women globally facing some kind of gender based violence.

Speaking at the service Canon Soady added that the problem was not only one facing women in other countries, with seven women a month killed by a current or former partner in England and Wales

He said that the WI’s 2009 report in 2009 demonstrated that women who live in the countryside experience the same levels of violence as women who live in urban areas and also demonstrated the peculiar issues around confidentiality, and lack of access to transport experienced by women in rural areas.

“So all though we think all may be well in this corner of Gwent it is just as likely to be the scene of such violence as any inner city area and the consequences are felt very differently,” said Canon Soady.

“More widely many advocates of Women’s Rights as Human Rights have expressed concerns that much of the ground gained by the UN declaration has been threatened by the rise of more conservative forces within world –so there is still much to be done. So it is right that we gather hear today to pray for the elimination of violence, and to commit ourselves anew to work fore that elimination.

“Down the centuries we have known the powerful us their power to abuse the weak. That is not the Christian way, we believe that we are all made in the image of God and we are therefore all equal in God’s sight. Jesus tells us in the Gospels that we are to treat all our human beings as we would treat the Messiah himself.

“ Represented in the Jesse Window isn this Priory Church, is Ruth. Her wife story can be read in The Bible, the Book of Ruth In the Book of Ruth, we hear how Boaz uses his power and influence to help the vulnerable Ruth. He showed us a different way, the right way to treat those in positions of weakness….and in doing so he was following the Law, as stated in Deuteronomy 26 verse 12 “When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied”.

Indeed the Bible is very clear throughout that violence against women is wrong. The first book in the Bible proclaims that all of us are created in the likeness of God, whatever our gender; as such all of us are entitled to be treated as God’s precious children, whose image we reflect.

“Also in the window are represented two Welsh saints who are credited with the way they dealt with advances from powerful men: The Patroness of Wales, Winifred; and our National Patron Saint David’s mother, Non. Also found in the window are Beersheba and King David. David of course plotted the murder of Beersheba’s husband following his night of passion with her.

“As followers of Christ who commanded us to love our neighbour their can be no place for violence and abuse of power and authority –   let us continue to take that message of love out to the world, as if we were taking light in to a dark place,” he concluded.