THREE churches came together on Friday to hold a small vigil to ‘shine a light on violence against women and girls’ on Friday.

Members of Dodbrooke Church, Kingsbridge Methodist Church and St Edmund’s Church gathered outside the latter on Friday, November 25, at midday to hold a candlelit show of solidarity against gender violence.

Friday was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and started 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, an international campaign, which runs through to December 10, Human Rights Day.

The Rev Jackie Taylor, St Edmund’s Church, said they were ‘standing with their brothers and sisters cross the country’ and Brenda Gidley, coordinator for the Dodbrooke Mother’s Union said a prayer.

The World Health Organisation, WHO, estimates that about one in three women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime.

Most of this is intimate partner violence, with 30 per cent of women in the world experiencing violence from their partners in their lifetime.

In the UK, up to three million women experience violence, and there are many who live with the legacies of abuse experienced in the past.

Ban Ki moon, United Nations Secretary General, said: ‘Violence against women continues to persist as one of the most heinous, systematic and prevalent human rights abuses in the world. It is a threat to all women, and an obstacle to all our efforts for development, peace, and gender equality in all societies.

‘Violence against women is always a violation of human rights; it is always a crime; and it is always unacceptable. Let us take this issue with the deadly seriousness that it deserves.’

You can find a video of the small vigil below, albeit with some distracting road noise.