(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Women’s rights activists have observed November 25th as a day to advocate against gender-based violence since 1981. However, it was not until 2000 that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution 54/134, officially designating November 25th as the International day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
This date was chosen to honour the Mirabal sisters, three political activists from the Dominican Republic, who were brutally murdered in 1960. In 1991, the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute set aside 16 days and included that single day, to bring the issue of violence against women and girls into sharp focus. The 16-day period incorporates four important observances, starting with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls on November 25th; Human Rights Defenders Day on November 29th; World AIDS Day, on December 1st, with the campaign ending on Human Rights Day on December 10th.
A major step was taken in 2008 when former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon launched the UNiTE to End Violence against Women and Girls Campaign. It aimed to not only raise public awareness of the issue, but also to increase both policymaking and resources dedicated to ending violence against women and girls worldwide. It, however, remains a pervasive problem worldwide.
Our Caribbean Region, according to UN Women, accounts for some of the highest rates of that type of violence in the world. One in three women and or girls, have experienced physical and or sexual violence at some point in their lives.
This year’s theme is: Orange the World: #Hear Me Too; End Violence Against Women and Girls. The colour orange was chosen as a bright, unifying colour which represents a future free of violence for women and girls. The 16 Days of Activism Campaign is a time to galvanize action to end that practice around the world, as well as the impunity, silence and stigma that have allowed it to escalate to pandemic proportions and, in some cases, so normalised that it has become invisible.
While most countries have laws which ban domestic abuse, the World Health Organisation (WHO) documents fifteen countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, where domestic violence is legal. Thirty-seven countries worldwide still exempt perpetrators of rape from prosecution if they are married to or eventually marry the victim and forty-nine countries currently have no laws protecting women from domestic violence.
The UN has called on the international community to accelerate its efforts to ensure that women and girls can live lives free of violence and intimidation at latest by 2030. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has included violence against women and girls as a target area under Goal 5 on Gender Equality. It reaffirms that such violence is a barrier to gender equality, women’s empowerment and sustainable development, as well as to the achievement of the other sixteen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It is important to note that while violence is an extreme violation of women and girls human rights, it also incurs huge economic costs for women and families, as well as for communities and societies. The 57th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in 2013, noted the economic and social harm caused by such violence and strongly urged all governments to collect, collate, analyze and disseminate reliable and comparable data and statistics on a regular basis, disaggregated by sex and age.
Data is needed on all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls. There is also a need for multidisciplinary research and analysis on the structural and underlying causes of, and risk factors for violence, its types and prevalence, in order to inform the development and revision of laws.
I am happy to report that, with the collaborative efforts of UN Women, the CARICOM Secretariat and several international partners, prevalence surveys on gender-based violence have been conducted in the CARICOM Region for the first time. The Trinidad and Tobago’s Prevalence Survey was completed in May 2018, and Jamaica’s in June. Surveys are in progress in Grenada and Suriname with Guyana scheduled to launch theirs in January 2019.
As we mark the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, partners and governments are encouraged to host events with local, national, regional and global women’s movements, survivor advocates and women human rights defenders. These should create opportunities for sharing personal stories to stimulate dialogue among activists, policy-makers and the public.
During this sixteen-day Campaign, people around the world, especially women, are mobilising to ensure that they can enjoy the full complement of their human rights. But women and girls cannot do it alone. Men and boys must become involved.
We all have a shared responsibility in achieving gender equality which will allow our women and girls in our Caribbean Region an opportunity to live their lives free of violence.
This must be some kind of joke, instead of mister caricom secretariat talk about or come up with a plan, to lower the employment rate in the caricom states including dominica, the rioting going on in haiti, record crime and murder in jamaica and trinidad, lowering the taxes liat charge for ticket, flooding in so many countries, that all he have to talk about. Maybe, ok it’s late in the year, so all the cocktail parties, he has and had, to attend, it might be clouding his brain
These are all issues they continue to speak about and continue to engage countries in discourse for plans. Check the CARICOM website, the CYA pages etc. However, given that we are in the 25th of November of is the international day of violence against women he released a message on that fact.
A matter that goes beyond just the CARICOM organization or heads of countries. This issue stems from the grassroots level and builds up and something that all of us as a society need to simultaneously combat.
There is not internet, wifi or T.V. in the majority of dominica including Atkinson don2, but high unemployment is everyday and ever hour in dominica, Tell me when last have anyone seen a caricom worker in the country side of dominica. not in Atkinson
Lol what a stupid comment. They’ve been talking about all what you mentioned. Nut I guess either your logic they are only allowed to talk about what you mentioned and absolutely nothing else. Try listening to the radio, try buying news papers. Dbs usually has that information in their afternoon news. Listen to the heads of government meetings too. Your comment is beyond stupid.
Having observed what has been happening in the US in recent times re: the gender-based/women activists, I will urge a lot of caution & monitoring as to the type & methods of activism that will be utilized by these activists groups & the type of message they’ll push.
I don’t condone violence against any MALE or FEMALE but we need to be careful about the hijacking of these movements by extremists and practitioners of deceit.
Are we going to see activism along the lines of #ALL-women-must-be-believed, #women-don’t-tell-lies, #all-men-are-guilty-until-proven-innocent?
Also such activism movements tend to be covert doorways for the introduction of transgender & homosexual agitator & activists groups into society. College & university students, be very careful about these irrelevant social courses they may be introduced to such as gender, LGBT & feminist studies which focus more on radical & distorted ideologies rather than facts.
BEWARE & BE ALERT y’all!!!
Gender education as we know it , must go through a major transformation . Man have been mis-lead and mis-educated in believing that the Women is part of his tool kit . Women not knowing the true meaning of their place and space tend to go along with this fallacy . She is everything Nature have to offer, Man’ mother, Sister , Aunty , Girl friend, Lover, and Wife. Don’t forget, the only one he can really trust , a Woman, his best friend, She will always have his back in most cases, should i go any further ? . This is the first step in educating our young men, without Her ? there will be no Him . No UN symposium can teach that , a talk shop for them , but Spirituality for some of us who have realized the power of the GODDESS . Gender equality we may never achieve , but RESPECT we should strive for . Don’t let emotion be your guide .