Rising Against Violence: Eve Ensler’s Global Campaigns

In early 2009, Eve Ensler’s organization the V­Day Campaign announced a six­city theater tour titled “Turning Pain into Power”, which featured Ensler alongside Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege. Moving between the East (New York and DC) and West coasts (Northern and Southern California), with a brief stop in Atlanta, this tour featured a series of conversations between the American playwright­activist and the winner of the 2008 UN Human Rights Prize and founder of the ground­breaking Panzi Hospital1 in Bukavu, Eastern Congo. The main topic of conversation was violence against women, with a particular emphasis on the stories of Congolese survivors of sexual violence. The “Turning Pain into Power” tour was coordinated in support of the V­Day­UNICEF “Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource, Power To The Women And Girls of The Democratic Republic of Congo”, an ini­ tiative that called for an end to impunity for sexual violence and for the full implementation of local and national laws to protect women and girls.