Jun 03 – Mrs Gibraltar Domestic Violence Awareness Campaign
The Mrs Gibraltar beauty pageant team launched its domestic violence awareness campaign yesterday evening.
Ideal Productions, the pageant’s organisers, released a powerful video which shows this year’s contestants (and reigning Mrs Gibraltar Serika Garcia) wearing make up to mimic bruises and scratches.
The video puts across the vital message that victims of domestic violence and abuse must speak out and not suffer in silence. It has been produced in support of the local Women in Need charity and can be viewed on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/YourGibraltarTV/videos
Speaking at the event yesterday evening in Champions Planet, Minister Dr John Cortes said: “Domestic violence is the sort of thing that people don’t like to talk about but it’s often the things that people don’t like to talk about that we should talk about most. The way you’ve gone about promoting this has my full support and the Government’s. We’ve got to bring these things out into the open; we’ve got to have a moral conscience.”
Opposition MP Lawrence Llamas said: “I was quite moved by this initiative and I think what you are doing is fabulous. I think it takes a lot of courage to enter these pageants and you’re showing that it’s more than just a beauty pageant; you’re doing something for the community in general.”
Claire Borrell, the founder of Women in Need, said: “What a lot of people don’t realize is that domestic violence is four things: it’s the physical abuse, the emotional abuse, the sexual abuse and the financial abuse. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the bruises and the broken arms, it can be a lot of other things that people don’t see. The emotional abuse never ever goes away.”
Below: Claire Borrell shares her experiences with the Mrs Gibraltar team.
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