Preparations have started here for the “One Billion Rising” campaign against violence perpetrated against women and girls, as part of which thousands of people will leave their daily routine behind and rise up to demand an immediate end to gender-based cruelty. The event will coincide with global observance on February 14.

South Asia coordinator for the campaign and feminist-activist Kamla Bhasin said here on Thursday that the movement will take women’s issues from the local to global scale in order to attract the attention of world leaders and policy-makers to gross injustice displayed in domestic violence, rape, discrimination and harassment.

Representatives of 150 activist groups resolved at a youth convention in Udaipur this past week to mobilise women and children for taking part in the campaign in large numbers. Women activists launching a “fortnight against violence” later this month will also issue a call to spread the movement far and wide and ensure the participation of all sections of society.

Ms. Bhasin said women will leave their homes and offices, and march and dance on streets to raise their voice “in defiance of injustice” and join the powerful act of refusal to let the violence continue. “We will join millions of women and men around the world to say: Enough! The violence ends now.”

“It is going to be one of the biggest cultural tsunamis against violence,” said Ms. Bhasin laying emphasis on the need for a momentous campaign like this in the wake of the United Nations projection that one in three women in the world is beaten or raped during her lifetime. In other words, more than one billion women living on planet are subjected to violence.

Referring to the origin of the “One Billion Rising” campaign in the number of victims, Ms. Bhasin said February 14 will turn out to be an important day when there will be a spontaneous expression of women’s desire for a just society. “It will be a decentralised movement with no branding and just one message: violence against women must end once and for all.”

Women activists Kavita Srivastava of People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Renuka Pamecha of Mahila Punarwas Samooh, Nisha Siddhu of National Federation of Indian Women and Mewa Bharati of Gharelu Mahila Kamgar Union extended unstinting support to the campaign.

Women’s groups also condemned a caste panchayat verdict delivered at Bhandarej in Dausa district requiring girls to wear scarf or not to carry mobile phones, and demanded immediate action against the so-called panchayat leaders. Ms. Srivastava said the caste panchayats were “illegal entities” and must be banned forthwith to protect women’s rights.

The activists also demanded release of a package worth Rs.10 lakh for rehabilitation of the victim of the infamous 1997 J. C. Bose Hostel rape case in Jaipur. A Sessions court here recently sentenced the offenders in the case to 10 years’ imprisonment.