Look around you. Pick out five females. Statistics show that at least one of those five women will be victims of sexual assault at some point during their college careers. In America, a woman is raped every two minutes. Around the world, one in three women have been beaten, coerced into sex or abused. Seventy-five percent of female rape victims require medical care after the attack. Internationally, two million girls between the ages of two and fifteen are introduced into the commercial sex market. By the time you finish reading this article a dozen women in America will be battered.

Violence against women is happening everywhere. It is local and specific. It does not distinguish between class or race or age or locality. Rape doesn't exclusively take place in back alleys; it occurs in homes, plush hotel suites and college residence halls. Women are beaten in thatched huts, high-rise apartments and trailer parks. They are sold into sexual slavery every few minutes. Females are burned with acids for refusing to marry, and mutilated as young children. Although the particular forms of violence may vary from culture to culture, we have come to expect it, make room for it, accommodate it and turn our eyes away as if it were a natural part of the human condition. As a result, women spend most of their lives recovering from, resisting or surviving violence rather than creating and thriving.

These facts are the reason why this campus and thousands of other locations worldwide proclaim today as V-Day. Today, the University joins the global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day has become a palpable energy, a fierce catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day is an organized response against violence toward women. It is a vision of a world where women live safely and freely. The supporters of V-Day demand that rape, incest, battery, genital mutilation and sex slavery must end now. It is an unstoppable movement and community. The mission of V-Day is simple. It demands that the violence must end. It proclaims Valentine's Day as V-Day until the violence stops.

Born out of playwright Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," V-Day has been feeding the worldwide campaign to stop violence against women. This year, Eve Ensler takes her vision further. She dares to dream of not just a day, but a world free from rape, fear and abuse. Today, Eve Ensler brings her vision here, to our University. On this V-Day, Eve Ensler encourages us to imagine a world without violence against women. At 3:00 p.m. this international feminist activist will transform 1800 Chemistry Building into her vision: "V-World" where all women live in safety, no longer fearing violence. In V-World, where there exists no violence, women and children will be allowed to be born in China, India and Korea; safe in their beds at home in the United States, Europe and Asia; eating ice cream in Afghanistan; keeping their clitorises in Africa and Asia; voting in Kuwait; openly flirting in Jordan; safe at parties on college campuses; driving cars in Saudi Arabia; securely walking home from work in Mexico; enjoying sex; celebrating their desires; loving their bodies; thriving in an empowering world.

I encourage you to imagine your own V-World. I challenge you to take a stand in the fight against violence. Get involved at today's V-Day rally, educate yourself during Eve Ensler's lecture, celebrate women at the production of "The Vagina Monologues," join the campaign, and change the statistics. We should not stop until the violence stops. It is time that we create a societal change to ensure a world where women live safely and freely. We must envision a new world where violence has ended and V-World is finally born.

Mersereau is an Engineering sophomore and a member of the executive board for the University's V-Day College Campaign.