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November 25, 2022, Adrian, Michigan – The General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters issued the following statement in observance of the United Nations’ International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women, November 25, 2022.

As a community of women of faith with a global presence – in the United States, Dominican Republic, Philippines and Norway – we join in observing the United Nations’ International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, and call for an end to gender-based violence in our world. 

We are especially mindful of the courageous women in Iran who have been engaged in daily protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who died in police custody days after her arrest on September 13, while visiting family in Tehran, for allegedly wearing her head scarf or hijab “improperly.” As The New York Times reported later that month, “Tossing head scarves into bonfires, dancing bareheaded before security agents, young women have been at the forefront of these demonstrations, supplying the defining images of defiance.” 

Despite brutal crackdowns and the arrest of more than 16,000 people, the protests continue. According to Iran Human Rights, at least 416 people have been killed, including 51 children and 27 women, and hundreds more injured in gruesome videotaped police beatings. The woman journalist, Niloufar Hamedi, who first brought attention to Amini’s story, is among 48 journalists, including 18 women, held under arrest. 

Valuing human dignity and aware of the injustice of patriarchy which maintains the subordinate status of women and girls throughout the world, we stand in solidarity with the courageous women of Iran, and the men who support them, in their decades-long cry for gender equality. We pray for their safety and for the uplifting of their inherent rights and dignity – and those of all women and girls around the world – beloved by God and made in God’s image. 

The General Assembly adopted this day of observation in honor of three heroic sisters in the Dominican Republic – Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal – who resisted the reign of terror of then-dictator Rafael Trujillo. Under his order, they were brutally murdered on November 25, 1960. The Mirabal sisters, also known as Las Mariposas (the Butterflies), have become international symbols of popular and feminist resistance against oppression. 

Members of the General Council of the Adrian Dominican Sisters are Sisters Elise D. García, OP, Prioress; Lorraine Réaume, OP, Vicaress; and Corinne Sanders, OP, Janice Brown, OP, and Bibiana Colasito, OP. 

April 7, 2022, New York, New York – The equality of women and the threat of global climate change are two vital issues confronting the world today. These issues were taken up together March 14-26, 2022, during the during the United Nations’ 66th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW66). 

This year’s CSW was “especially timely” with the theme, “Achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in the context of climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programs,” said Adrian Dominican Sister Durstyne Farnan, OP, the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) representative of Dominicans in120 countries around the world.

In an article published in the National Catholic Reporter’s Global Sisters Report, Sister Durstyne writes of her experience of participating in CSW66 and the unique opportunity of witnessing the final two hours of deliberations by representatives of the member states on session outcomes. 

“In spite of being an important part of the priority theme, climate change received little coverage,” Sister Durstyne writes. Still, she adds, she is pleased with the number of items that were included in the session outcomes and feels a strong commitment to work toward those outcomes. 

“We women and nongovernmental organizations working at the U.N. will continue to push to advance the outcomes and implementations of the agreed conclusions,” Sister Durstyne concludes. “Women’s lives depend on the fulfillment of the agreed conclusions.”