On Tuesday, another member of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) was remanded to prison for murder. Collin Hazel has been charged for the death of his 29-year-old girlfriend, Donalesa Park, a hairdresser of Number Two Village, East Canje, Berbice who was killed and dumped in a garbage bag.
If one can recall, former GDF Captain Orwain Sandy admitted to shooting his reputed wife to death on March 31, 2018, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Both instances involved intimate partner violence that ended deadly.
It is no secret that women worldwide, including those in Guyana, continue to face unacceptable levels of violence in various forms. The World Health Organization has estimated that nearly one in three women worldwide has experienced physical and/or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner.
The COVID-19 pandemic has further contributed to increasing the risk of violence, particularly domestic violence, against women.
Locally, a 2020 report from the University of Guyana showed that the “incidence of domestic violence by an intimate or previously intimate partner in Guyana increased from 74.8% in 2011 to 89% in 2017”, with more than 80% of the victims being female.” Many of those “intimate partners” are mothers, and this offers a clue as to what is really going on.
The males inflicting that horrendous level of violence on persons supposed to be their “better halves” had to have been socialised in homes where such behaviour was normalised. A report from the year before claimed, “Half of all women who experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Guyana never sought help. Victims, community members and stakeholders attributed this to lack of knowledge of available help, perceptions of being blamed or stigmatised by their situation becoming known throughout the community, and inadequate support structures to ensure victim safety after reporting violence to the Police.” The LAPOP poll explained that indifference when it showed that 62% of Guyanese feel that intimate partner violence is a “private matter”. In Guyanese parlance, a “man and wife thing”.
While it is routinely touted that “the family” is the building block of society, in Guyana, at least 30% of “families” are headed by mothers, without fathers to complete the normative “nuclear” family. As such, Edith Clarke’s 1957 study of the phenomenon in Jamaica, her classic “My mother who fathered me”, has recently been expanded and reissued because it remains relevant in the entire Caribbean.
The university poll cited also explains why this may be so: “Socialisation matters more than the circumstances in predicting the normalisation of intimate partner violence.” But it also suggests a way to reduce the despicable behaviour: “Education has the largest predicted effect on attitudes towards IPV: more educated individuals are 24 percentage points less likely to normalise IPV (i.e., more likely to see it as a matter that merits the public attention).”
For starters, the curricula of our educational institutions from nursery to university should have explicit modules that socialise our next generation to view any form of domestic violence, including IPV, as reprehensible, and not to be tolerated. There must also be a sensitisation of the wider society through a programme of public education through billboards, messages on social and mainstream media etc. against IPV.
Every year, between 25 November and 10 December – 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence – Guyana joins the WHO and other partners to raise awareness about the global need to prevent and respond to violence against women, and provide support to survivors.
However, not many women admit to being victims of violence. The Human Services Minister had some time ago said, “Domestic violence remains a taboo, shuttered behind closed doors and only emerging as bloody faces, bruised limbs, broken spirits and dead bodies. Fear of societal judgement, insecurities about children and finances, family pressure and manipulation keep this a hushed conversation, or results in an overwhelming silence”.
As pointed out by the Human Services and Social Security Minister, “Violence against women is a heinous crime and a pervasive breach of human rights. Yet, it continues to be one of the longest, hardest challenges to the world, and involves psyches, attitudes, poverty, cultures, emotional manipulation, substance abuse, and lack of education”.
We echo the call by the Minister that better can and must be done. Everyone must work in every home, school, office, community in every part of our country to expose violence against women where it exists; support the women; work with the perpetrators; create safe spaces; educate persons, and share solutions.
