"And I saw what Art can do"

(Excerpt of Eve speaking about V-Day's work in the Congo and collaboration with the UN/UNICEF)

"[...]we did these public tribunals, when I was there. In Goma and Bukavu, where ten women in each city came forward and told their stories before government officials, before UN officials, before hundreds of people in their community. It has never happened in the Congo that women have broken silence.

These women were so fierce. We worked with them for a week everyday, practicing their stories, telling their stories, doing trauma exercises, releasing… And then they got up, and they were so strong, they were so fierce, they were so powerful. And both events were filled with men who were weeping, literally. Kleenexes were being passed out. Governors were there, high officials were there. We would never have have gotten [...]the high officials... the – UN brought all those people. They are able to bring in all kinds of players and actors in the story that V-Day would never have access to. And we’re able to do these radical moments of breakingthe silence, and telling their story, and spreading pink, and spreading red, and spreading a whole different kind of energy [...]

I’ll tell you another example of our collaboration that sums it up. Last year we did huge demonstrations in the streets of Bukavu and Goma, and 8,000 women marched in the streets of Bukavu to stop the violence. And it was beautiful. And in the end, there was this huge stadium, and there was speeches and we did this whole performance [...] she [Justine, famous Congolese actress] had organized a theater piece which was about rape. And they were doing this whole community-based piece, where women were being raped, and they were calling on the cell phone- and this was in front of all the U.N. officials, and the first lady, who had come [...] All decked out, in this pink outfit! No kidding, she looked like Princess Diana, in pink [...] during the piece, Justine got dragged away, by a rapist, and when she came back, she had a little baby in her arms, who was a product of rape.

And she started to scream, “I have been raped, by so many men, that I don’t know the name of my baby!” And then she took the baby, and she threw the baby onto the first lady's lap. Threw the baby! Just like that [mimics motion] And said, “You. Name my baby!” I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. The first lady just went, [mimics total shock] scoops up the baby- all the guards were like [mimics sound of loading guns] but they couldn’t shoot the baby, right? And there was just like this moment, 5,000 women watching, and everyone just gasped.

And then the first lady sort of scooped up the baby, held the baby, and the first lady changed all her plans. She stayed at Bukavu three days. She came and danced with the rape women. She fed the rape women, she joined our campaign. And I saw what art can do, but I also saw UNICEF and V-Day. And the UNICEF people were like, ‘Did you plan that? Why didn’t you tell us about that?’ And I was like, ‘I dunno, it just happened!’ [laughter] And that’s what we are able to do together. And that’s what, at our meeting in Goma, the UNICEF people said, we need you to be who you are. You need to go and push the edge as far as it can go, and we need to do what we do."