Orange Day is observed on the 25th of each month to raise awareness and take action to end violence against women and girls. Everyone is encouraged to learn more, share information, speak out and wear something orange in support of the issue.
This month, Orange Day will draw on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Eight – “Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full employment and decent work for all” – to highlight the link between violence against women and girls and the empowerment of women. The theme of women’s empowerment in the world of work will also be the focus this year at the 61st session of the Commission on the Status of Women (13 to 24 March 2017, New York) and for International Women’s Day on March 8.
“Violence against women at work has serious and immediate consequences for those who are directly affected by it,” says UN Women in its Orange Day information note for February, “and it can also have wider reaching effects on their ability to earn a livelihood, support their family, achieve economic empowerment, and access other rights.” Such violence also costs organisations, “causing absenteeism, increased staff turnover, and resulting in reduced productivity.” It therefore calls for support of the SDG Eight target to promote safe and secure working environments for all workers, pointing specifically to the role of the corporate sector in this effort.
In 2015, a new global development agenda was accepted by all countries and is applicable to all. Through its 17 goals, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an agenda for global action for the next 15 years, addresses the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social, and environmental. The Agenda recognises gender equality and the empowerment of women as a key priority and pledges that “no one will be left behind.”
Goal Five of the agenda aims to “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” and includes specific targets to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls. However, all goals are integrated and indivisible, therefore their achievement is also fully dependent on ensuring parallel and interconnected implementation of the efforts to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls. For this reason, throughout 2017 and through its Orange Days, the UNiTE campaign will continue to highlight specific SDGs as they relate to violence against women and girls.
In Guyana, a combination of social norms and social and cultural practices have been identified as the main factors that influence violence against women in this country. In many communities across Guyana, incidents of domestic violence continue to be “nobody’s business” and is too often the excuse of “justified punishment” or “discipline” is used to excuse the act itself.
In2016, the National Task Force for Domestic Violence was launched after which several protocols for medical practitioners, Police Officers and Prosecutors, among others, were signed; the Task Force was needed since there were no mechanisms in place for partners to follow guidelines on how to respond to victims of domestic and sexual violence. The Unit will also embark on training partners which include members of the Guyana Police Force.
One in three women around the world experience violence in their lifetime, often in the hands of someone they know, love and trust. Of all women who were victims of homicide globally in 2012, almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members.
The term ‘violence against women’ means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, UN General Assembly, 1993). All are being encourage to take action this Orange Day.
