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UNITED
NATIONS (Reuters) –
The United
Nations women's agency launched a campaign on Monday backed by
actress Nicole Kidman to gather signatures on an Internet
petition rejecting violence against women and urging action to
stop it.
The launch
of the petition titled "Say NO to violence against women,"
(www.saynotoviolence.org), is part of a 16-day U.N.-backed
campaign to raise awareness about the issue and urge governments
to make eliminating such violence a priority.
Joanne
Sandler, acting head of the U.N. Development Fund for Women,
UNIFEM, said she hoped for hundreds of thousands, or even
millions, of signatures to add weight to calls for concrete
measures to be taken by governments.
Kidman, an
Australian who is a goodwill ambassador for UNIFEM, did not
attend the launch at U.N. headquarters but said in a statement
she was among the first to sign, calling violence against women,
"an appalling human rights violation."
UNIFEM
said statistics indicate that as many as one in three women will
experience violence in her lifetime, whether it be domestic
violence, genital mutilation, human trafficking or systematic
rape in conflict zones.
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