The following press release is from the United Nations on March 31st:
The Unbox Me campaign was launched by UNAIDS ahead of the International Transgender Day of Visibility, observed this Thursday, 31 March.
The goal is to raise awareness among parents, teachers, and the wider community about gender identity during childhood.
Expressing Identity Freely
Many of us take our gender identity for granted, but for many children it is not so easy. It’s a matter of daily survival, a daily struggle.
Children all around the world must be supported in expressing their identity freely.
Said Mahesh Mahalingam, UNAIDS Director of Communications and Global Advocacy.
Unbox Me is centred around a common experience for children, many of whom have boxes or hiding places where they store prized possessions and trinkets.
Box Of Dreams
These hidden objects can reveal a lot about the child, such as who they really are, their likes, and their dreams for the future.
For some transgender children, hiding treasures in a box can become a way of hiding their identity from disapproving eyes, UNAIDS said. Unbox Me helps to give them visibility.
Stigma, discrimination and criminalization tend to make transgender and gender-diverse people invisible, the agency added, with extreme forms of discrimination leading to even the denial of the existence of gender-diverse people.
Acceptance And Inclusion
The Unbox Me campaign originated in India, where more than 90 percent of transgender people leave their homes, or are thrown out, by the age of 15. Many end up living on the street with no money or education, or relying on sex work.
The campaign is now going global as its theme of acceptance and inclusion is universal.
Around the world, transgender people are often marginalized and suffer discrimination and violence. As a result, they are nearly 35 times more at risk of acquiring HIV than other adults, according to the UN agency, which is working to stamp out the virus, and end AIDS, by the decade’s end.
Criminalized
Currently, some 24 countries criminalize and prosecute transgender people. During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments even instituted gender-specific mobility days during lockdowns, which resulted in some transgender people being arrested for going out on the “wrong” day.
UNAIDS works closely with the transgender community, civil society organizations and governments to decriminalize transgender people, secure their rights and ensure that they have access to health, education and social protection, as well as protection from abuse and exploitation.
Collaboration And Support
The Unbox Me campaign is part of an ongoing collaboration between UNAIDS and the advertising agency FCB India.
Last year, they partnered on a successful short film called ‘The Mirror’, about a young boy looking in the mirror and dressing up as a woman.
The film was part of the #SeeMeAsIAm campaign and served to raise awareness among parents, teachers and the community, about gender identity in childhood, which the current campaign builds on.
In India, children usually have a box which they use to store their most precious possessions, but in the case of transgender children they need to hide their box of treasures, since some of their most precious possessions don’t fit the gender norm that society expects them to conform to.
Said Swati Bhattacharya, FCB India’s Creative Chairperson, who conceptualized Unbox Me.
So far, the campaign has garnered support among the education community in India, UNAIDS has reported.
Teachers in many schools across the country are using the boxes featured in the campaign as a conversation starter to raise awareness about gender identity.
Many prominent Indian personalities and community leaders have also participated in the campaign, including film director Zoya Akhtar and television anchor Barkha Dutt.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[4] The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. [5] Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.Proverbs 16:4-5
And so, it should come as no surprise as well why the nations are collapsing like crazy right now, to wit the West more specifically, being overpowered and overrun by the hypocritical nations of the East. The West is facing much more sore punishment because they have backslidden and rejected the truth of God’s word.
[27] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. [28] Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; [29] But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Luke 17:27-29
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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