Fifteen hundred people came together in Harpa over lunch today to dance in support of women and girls who have been victims of gender-based violence, Vísir reports. The event was Iceland’s effort in the ‘1 Billion Rising’ campaign organised by UN Women, the arm of the United Nations dedicated to empowerment of women worldwide.
The goal of ‘1 Billion Rising’ was to amass one billion people worldwide dancing to show their support for the cause. Harpa’s installment of the event featured a screening of the video made by Eve Ensler and Tony Stroebel, as well as a speech sharing statistics about gender-based violence worldwide.
The turnout at Harpa today surpassed the expectations of UN Women’s Iceland office, which had been hoping for 1000 people to show up.
The local chapter released a statement saying “One third of women will be assaulted in their lifetime because of their gender. One billion women and girls have already experienced gender-based violence. We in Iceland are perhaps not a large part of that billion, but we can still play a part in shaking the earth for the cause.”
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