He used to use his hand to communicate with his wife. But that was five years ago before counsel from anti-domestic violence community volunteers and a training stint helped him save his marriage.

Such has been Wang Bin's transformation that now he leads a 13-man volunteer group in the Kaiyang community of Beijing to eradicate domestic violence.

"I want to use my experience both as a perpetrator of and fighter against domestic violence to appeal to those gearing up for the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC)," Wang said Sunday.

Wang and 200 other residents, all wearing white ribbons as a symbol of personal pledge never to perpetrate, condone or remain silent on violence against women, gathered at Kaiyang Sunday to begin a series of programs.

The programs will continue till November 25, the international day for Eradication of Violence Against Women.

The WRC is an international program calling men to end domestic violence. People in China responded to the WRC call at the beginning of this decade.

The campaign in the country has prompted an increasing number of victims to stand up against domestic violence and call for gender equality, Wang said. An All-China Women's Federation survey shows violence has been reported from 35 percent of the 270 million families in China, with most of the victims being women.

The central government has passed general legislation and actively cooperates with NGOs to prevent domestic violence, said Chen Benjian, chief of Network for Combating Domestic Violence under China Law Society.

"The revised Marriage Law and the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women both set a general legislative base for anti-family violence," Chen said. Nineteen provinces have specific regulations on the subject.

NGOs have played an important role in setting up a network of shelters across the country. One such example is Xuzhou's pilot program, which is funded jointly by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China Gender Facility and the UN Theme Group on Gender (UNTGG), Chen said.

Educating woman victims to break their silence is as important as asking men to stop the violence, said Li Mingshun, an expert with Gender and Law Researching Center of the Social Academic Institution.

(China Daily November 19, 2007)