Violence against women is reaching alarming levels across the world and it seems as though enough is not being done at the national level, in some of the most affected countries, to cause an immediate reduction in the scourge. Also, enough financial and human resources are not being allocated to campaigns and community initiatives that are aimed at protecting our vulnerable women and girls who are now being considered as endangered species.
Research shows that one in every three women worldwide experience either physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of their intimate partners or male family members during their lifetime. According to UN Statistics released in 2012, 38 per cent of all murders of women were committed by males but this figure climbed to a staggering 50 per cent by 2016.
Closer to home, statistics released by the World Bank and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) point to a disturbing trend which proves that Caribbean nations and islands have higher rates of sexual violence and a murder rate that is four times higher than the world average.
Approximately 30 per cent of women surveyed in Trinidad and Tobago experienced domestic violence; 67 per cent of women in Suriname have experienced violence in a cohabiting relationship and 30 per cent of adult women in Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados have experienced some form of domestic abuse.
And Caricom’s Advocate for Gender Justice, Dr Rosina Wiltshire believes while a lot of gains are being made by Caribbean countries, there is need for a redoubling of efforts to ensure that initiatives and campaigns that work and achieve lasting results are sustained. She also urged policyholders to look at the indisputable link between societal violence and domestic violence while noting that solving the latter is dependent on the adoption of pragmatic approaches to curbing the first through behavioural change.
Dr Wiltshire said it was time for countries to speak about new policies but ensure that they are properly implemented as the consequences of non-action and prevention could be result in a marked increase in homicide rates linked to instances of gender based and domestic violence. She remarked that a process of healing and behavioural change was necessary particularly to change the “macho” culture that encourages our boys that being kind is soft and expressing pent up emotions through crying is feminine. The more we fail to properly educate the boy child, the more likely he is to perpetuate violence.
Dr Wiltshire’s statements are food for thought and exposes the levels of weaknesses facing Guyana’s campaign against gender-based violence. In fact, it sheds light on the Government’s failure at policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. It is therefore not strange that our women and girls are being killed at an unprecedented level over the past decade.
In Guyana, one in every four women is likely to have been or become victims of sexual and physical violence perpetrated by males. The situation is made complex when one digests the fact that in 2017 alone, at least two women were killed for every month by their spouses, family members or male counterparts. And these figures relate to those instances that actually reached the mass media.
There are untold stories and underreported murders linked to domestic abuse in the hinterland and other parts of this country, yet the justice system remains slow and justice in general for many women is denied because of all sorts of failure of the security forces to properly apprehend and investigate reports of domestic violence and homicides linked to the scourge.
The truth is, officials are too busy attending white and blue collar events while our women are dying each month and others locked in relationships where their bodies are not worshiped as vessels of procreation but torched by mostly poor, uneducated and jealous males who sometimes have witnessed first-hand the abuse meted out to a female relative or who themselves have been victims of childhood violence.
The coalition Government has not for the past two years done anything different than its predecessor in office. It has not introduced a single new campaign or even implemented more practical approaches towards tackling domestic abuse and violence. This is despite an impassioned call by its Prime Minister for women to be respected during the 16 days of activism against violence held last year.
And the “no nonsense approach” that Head of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Policy Unit, Akila Doris spoke about remains a concept in policy and not reality. The situation is sickening on the ground and the Government has to adopt a more direct and practical approach to fighting domestic abuse. It must reform the People’s Progressive Party’s strategies, introduce new campaigns and take coercive policy decisions that discourage men from becoming victims of the “beat and kill” women culture that is still so pervasive in our society. Our community centres must be revamped to have welfare and social workers who are tackling and report actual instances and figures. Unless an evidence-based approach is rolled out here and statistics are recorded nationally and shared, progress while be slow while we lose our women at a fast rate.
If our heroes cannot be men then the women must fill the slack and they must do all that is necessary to save their women folk.
