From wage gap to online abuse, Hollywood actor Ashley Judd spoke here on Monday about her own experiences with gender-based violence and discrimination, and reiterated the need for women’s bodies to not be treated as objects.
Speaking on day two of the second ‘World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Women and Girls’, Ms. Judd said: “We [women] are not commodities. We are human beings and we are entitled to bodily integrity, sexual liberty and the right to be free from all forms of body invasion.”
The programme, organised by Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an NGO that works towards ending trafficking; and the Coalition for Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International), focused on the theme ‘Last Girl First’.
First-hand accounts
Ms. Judd, who is a survivor of sexual abuse herself, shared her experiences with violence as well as income inequality. Recounting a conversation with her mother, the singer Naomi Judd, Ms. Judd said: “There was some sort of chatter about what my antique pearls would cost and I said: “You know, mom, if I experienced pay equality, my pearls would be even more expensive and I would be dripping in diamonds”.
The actor added that her “lifetime earnings” would be 40% less compared to her male counterparts.
Ms. Judd said that when it came to violence against women, too, there was a different kind of inequality. Rapists had paternity rights over any children born as a consequence of the attacks in 22 of the 50 American States, said Ms. Judd. She added that in Kentucky, a Bill was recently introduced giving the rapist an option to press charges against the medical practitioner who performed a termination of the pregnancy caused by the crime.
Vulnerable sections
Earlier, Ms. Judd gave the keynote address on the first day of the congress on Sunday. She spoke about her experience with online abuse, as well as how it reminded her of being assaulted as a child.
Speaking about the event on Monday, Ms. Judd said: “There has been an appropriate emphasis at this world congress about putting the onus on the perpetrator, where it belongs, and the person who thinks that girls and women's bodies are purchasable”.
The founder of Apne Aap, Ruchira Gupta, said that the aim of the programme was to highlight the vulnerability of the “last girl, who is the most vulnerable of all human beings to prostitution because she is poor, female, teenager, low-caste in India, black in USA, indigenous in Australia and Canada, of a minority religion or ethnicity, perhaps a refugee in Africa and Europe, and is therefore preyed upon by traffickers”.
