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| Anoushka Shankar |
New Delhi, Feb. 12 (PTI): Anoushka Shankar has thrown her weight behind an online campaign demanding an end to crime against women in the wake of the Delhi gang rape, citing abuse she faced as a child.
“As a child I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years at the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly. Growing up, like most women I know, I suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other things I didn’t know how to deal with, I didn’t know I could change,” the 31-year-old daughter of Ravi Shankar said.
The sitar player, who lives in London, has invited via a website one billion women and those who love them to walk out, “dance, rise up, and demand” an end to this violence on Valentine’s Day.
“As a woman, I find I am frequently living in fear. Afraid to walk alone at night, afraid to answer a man who asks for the time... and enough is enough. I am rising, for (the Delhi rape victim) and women like her. I am rising with the amazing women of my country. I am rising for the child in me, who I don’t think will ever forgive and recover from what happened to her.
“So, join me, let’s rise, let’s dance. Dance has the power to heal, to transform. So let’s transform ourselves and this world. Let’s rise together,” she said in a video posted on the website.
The website, change.org, said: “The campaign ‘One Billion Rising’ is a promise that we will rise up with women and men worldwide to say, ‘Enough! The violence ends now’.”
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