Back by popular demand, the Wild Women’s Performing Arts Festival is scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 27 at Mong Hwan at Sinchon Station (Exit 2), from 8pm – 5am. The event is perhaps the only one in Korea that focuses solely on female performers while raising awareness about gender issues in Korea and around the world. The bi-annual fundraising event is already in its third season and expects attendees from around the country who are eager to bring about positive changes to women’s human rights issues in Korea. This year, the Festival is part of the Korean Women’s Association United’s (KWAU) celebrations for International Women's Day (IWD) and will kickoff IWD celebrations that will be held on March 8. IWD is a global event that originated in 1908 and is an occasion to review how far women have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development.

All funds raised from the event will go to the KWAU, an umbrella organization that unites anti sex-trafficking groups, Korea Women’s Hotline, and other groups such as agencies for disabled women. The KWAU lobbies tirelessly for equal rights for women in Korea, regardless of race or sexual orientation. Thanks to the hard work of the KWAU, many discriminatory laws and policies, such as the호주, or Head of Family Law, which dated back to the Japanese colonial times and granted men the legal right to rule over their families, have already been repealed, but there is much work to be done for gender equality. More specifically, changes need to be implemented with regards to discrimination in employment; human rights for victims of domestic violence and punishment of aggressors; amendments of laws to guarantee women community property; and more support for families with single mothers.

“Hopefully, events such as the Wild Women's Performing Arts Festival will remind us that every single living person has value, and that in creating a space where we can share our stories and celebrate our lives, we are creating a more vibrant and beautiful world,” commented the co-founder of the festival, Rebecca Cant. Rebecca, who is about to leave Korea, has passed the festival into the willing hands of a dedicated committee of activists who are working together to coordinate the upcoming event in February.

The Wild Women’s Performing Arts Festival was established in 2009 by Rebecca Cant and Angela Lytle, with the first performance held in January 2009. Through visual and aural performances, the event hopes to address the issue of gender equality in a way that Korean and English speakers alike can benefit from, allowing for some much needed changes and female representation in Korea.