Over 200 women gathered at Main Beach in Byron Bay today to greet the dawn to greet each other, and to add their numbers to 1,000,000,000 women rising for the annual V-Day celebrations.
The mass global action, One Billion Rising, aims to highlight and end violence against women and children – to date eight women have died at the hands of an intimate partner this year.
Organiser and MC, Zenith Virago asked those gathered to remember women all around the world who are suffering because of their gender.
Dressed in red everyone was led through a rehearsal of the dance before performing it for each other and themselves in the open sky.
Once the dancing was done, the fun began, and many took off to the water for an early morning swim.
The last thing before the swim was a commemoration of an event that took place 21 years ago in Federal when hundreds of women took off their clothes and made a giant heart with the words no war.
The only sad note of the day was that Some men on the beach took the opportunity to photograph and film the women in the ocean, the reason that women were protesting, was to highlight that this sort of thing happens.
Photos Tree Faerie
