While restaurants and shops enticed people with gift ideas that would set their better-half抯 heart aflutter on Valentine抯 day, 慔is Gift of Love?sent a different wave of palpitations around Colombo. 慔is Gift of Love?strategically placed at Majestic City, Crescat and Park Street Mews an odd set of gifts that some women across the country receive all year around. A hammer, a bottle of acid, barbed wire and an iron chain were some of these items on display.

Being as strange as they sound, you can guess these gifts are not received with the same feelings as a box of chocolates or bouquet of roses. They are instead brutally forced on wives and girlfriends by men as a means of punishment. Taking domestic violence out of the shadows, 慔is Gift of Love?is a campaign aimed at shocking people into realising an issue that抯 prevalent.

Valentine抯 Day was simply the launching pad for the campaign that will continue to draw the issue from the shadows and bring it into an open forum where people will feel the need to speak up and do something about it. 揙ur future plans are to come up with more projects and get people to interact,?explain the people behind the campaign. 揥e hope to provoke discussion, educate, inform, suggest things to do and inspire people to take action [against domestic violence].?/P>

They hope to do this through their Facebook page, as they believe the social media network is a powerful tool in reaching a large and widespread audience. Facebook is an ideal medium as their target group is the youth. The younger generation being more 揻orthright and opinionated? if they can be made aware of the ugly truth, they will react and make perpetrators realise they can no longer get away with abuse.

By stirring up the public, the campaign is aimed at getting more people involved to create a 揵igger voice? so that the NGOs and relevant government organisations, but mostly victims of domestic violence know they have the support of the public. It is to empower victims, 搕o let them know they are not alone, that they shouldn抰 be ashamed of their situation and that there is a way out?

Udeni Thewarapperuma, a lawyer working on women抯 rights issues in Sri Lanka for over the past decade, says, 揟he campaign is an eye opener for couples to look beyond celebration and understand that respect and equality are important in their relationship too.?She adds that there is limited statistics on domestic violence as it抯 a difficult issue to collect data on. Many cases go unreported as several victims do not seek support. 揃ut in my experience the severity of violence has increased. Emotional abuse is also a form of domestic violence and it抯 part and parcel of the lives of women who suffer physical abuse.?/P>

Author: Zhejiang Pujian Shenli Chain Co.,Ltd.
website:www.shenlichain.com
main product:  iron chain