A multi-sectoral ap-proach is needed if Guyana is to effectively address the frightening rise in domestic violence, according to sociologist and University of Guyana (UG) lecturer Andrew Hicks, who said there is a role for educators, government, police, prison, courts, churches and the community at large in this important fight.
“Time has come for domestic violence and spousal abuse to be treated as a public health challenge,” Hicks said, adding that one needs to look at the impact the violence has on society from an economic, social and health perspective.
He said that the state has to take a leadership role in this fight and not simply in relation to legislative reforms, but engage in assisting to build healthier communities.
And while there has been some criticism in recent times about the fact that UG’s Social Sciences Department has not initiated any local study dealing with the issue of domestic violence, Hicks pointed to the fact that the university is resource challenged, and the department simply does not have the financial capacity to conduct a national study on the subject.
“But I want to say that my department would be ready to partner with any agency to address this issue,” Hicks told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
“There is, I believe, a body of empirical data that is available to guide intervention. I think the failings in terms of what is happening in Guyana [are] not at the diagnostic level, but more at the intervention, the solution level,” Hicks said.
Social worker and member of the Women and Gender Equality Commission Nicole Cole however feels that there is need for research to be done on the issue since empirical data would have looked at past behaviour. She said the last local study which was done on domestic violence was in 1998 by Professor Ken Danns and Shiv Persaud. This had traced the genesis of the violence to the slave trade, and said that the violence culture which was deeply embedded appeared to be one the society was conditioned to accept.
“I think it is timely now for us to conduct another study into gender based violence given the fact that right now… it appears as though it is a normal thing, it is a conditioning,” Cole told Sunday Stabroek.
Because of the conditioning, Cole believes that people are numb to the phenomenon and many refuse to intervene in these disputes. Cole, herself a victim of domestic violence, said that if it were not for the intervention of her community she would have been a dead woman.
However, Hicks said that while local research could be helpful he pointed out that research studies have been done before in Guyana and the region, and he made mention of a regional study that was done in 2000 with the support of UG and the University of the West Indies. That study showed that the Commonwealth Caribbean is one of the regions with an extremely high rate of domestic violence of between 30 to 40%. It also showed that Guyana and Trinidad recorded the highest levels in terms of prevalence and that in Guyana the figure was close to four out of every ten women reporting an experience of abuse.
That study also spoke to issues of cause and consequences, and he said while the data might not be current, it did not mean they were irrelevant.
From the perspective of research, he said, what is important is how persons view the issue since there have been studies on bullying in schools which speak to the manifestation of violence and gender based violence.
“These are all experiences that lead to the greater problems where we see an increasing, an alarming change in partner violence in Guyana, and so while we could say we have not financed a study that focuses on spousal abuse there are other related areas that we pursued.”
He disclosed that recently there was an announcement in the media by an international agency focusing on gender based violence, and the social work unit of his department approached the agency to engage in a project which would have had a research component, but they were told that because they were a public entity they did not qualify for funding. He added that the university has been consistently seeking out opportunities to partner with agencies to address the many social problems in Guyana.
‘Changing
manifestation’
Meanwhile, Hicks said that UG’s Department of Sociology which he heads, and by extension the Department of Social Sciences is concerned about the changing manifestations of domestic violence in Guyana.
“As a sociologist I would posit that this is not something new, the phenomenon of domestic violence is not new, but what we have begun to see in more recent years is more violent attacks between partners depending on the kind of relationships that transcend the parties,” Hicks said. He pointed out that domestic violence or spousal abuse manifests itself in many different forms as it could be psychological or emotional, which are the less violent forms but are still manifestations of abuse. He said that in more recent times, however, the magnitude of the violence has “sharpened or deepened” and as such there is need to be concerned.
It is a concern that was also raised by Cole who said that the pattern of the violence that is being perpetrated seems to be getting more “vicious as the cycle continues,” and she feels that if there was a deterrent “the behaviour might be curbed, but rather there is a lot of talk.”
Hicks feels that the issue is not being dealt with in a holistic way, as what seems to be dominant is the penal perspective that suggests that if the perpetrators are jailed then everything would be normal thereafter.
“I am not dismissing the penological approach, but that approach can be unhelpful if you are just going to rely simply on that… because you have to look at other kinds of the things like what are some of the interventions that are going on in the prison,” he said.
He is of the opinion that the “behaviour” should be addressed from a correctional perspective and as such while there might be breaches of the law and that penalty should be applied, addressing the behaviour manifested by the perpetrator while they are in prison is equally important.
Hicks said he does not believe a programme exists that treats this category of offender in the prison system, and that allows that person to leave prison and reintegrate in a progressive way. Instead the person is locked away and released after some years, with no interventional work in terms of behaviour modification.
“The person in my judgment comes out worse and is therefore seeking vengeance,” Hicks commented, adding that the person might not be able to find his victim but may start a new relationship and the anger with which he would have left prison is like a pressure valve which could explode at any time and hence, the cycle of violence continues. While agreeing therefore that law reform has its place, Hicks said it is important to place emphasis on prison intervention asking whether there are social workers in the prison system who take on such cases and ultimately come up with a case management study that allows intervention.
Attention also needs to be placed on the changing pattern of domestic violence where a lot of the victims and perpetrators are young people below the age of 45, partly because Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean have a high concentration of youth. Hicks said attention needs to be placed on how young people are socalised, the phenomenon of absent fathers and how it contributes to the psyche of the individual, and how it manifests itself in the adult relationship that he/she forms later.
“I am saying this against the backdrop that it is known that in the Caribbean over the last twenty to twenty-five years we have seen the emergence of the single parent family structure that is the dominant family form now,” Hicks said.
He said that a lot of the perpetrators of spousal violence are the product of single parent families, most of which are headed by females.
One should be concerned about the kind of socialization that is taking place, and even in nuclear families the time a child spends with a parent is more maternal than paternal.
“In many single parent families the custom is to shout at each other; when you don’t bring home good grades from school, kids are demonized and we use a lot of anger in the way in which we attempt to correct errors in our children,” Hicks noted.
The sociologist said a lot of violence is also used in resolving sibling problems, and as a result these patterns of socialisation have contributed to the legitimization of violence. Attention also needs to be paid to “this long gone story that boys should not cry and if a boy cries in his family of origin we treat him as a sissy and similarly outside of the family we do the same.”
As a result boys are not encouraged and allowed to express their emotions and this facilitates degradation in their personality in terms of their capacity to manage anger, to express their emotions, all of which contributes to poorly socialized individuals.
The university lecturer also said there is a role for churches to play in addressing this ever growing societal problem, and while teaching people to be God-fearing has its own merits religious leaders must come together with other leaders in helping young people to understand the critical issues that they need to focus on when choosing a partner. Some of the critical issues are values about money and children, and not focusing on the underlying values and myths that a person brings to a relationship.
He said it is unfortunate that as society becomes more modernised it becomes more secularised and individualistic, where the focus is on “my business, my life and therefore you don’t have focus on community any more… These are the fundamental issues that we need to bring on board.” Hicks said he would not blame the issue on poverty as domestic violence cuts across all spectrums of society and regardless of one’s social class, all are affected.
Implementation
Meantime, Cole said in Guyana there are many policies and pieces of legislation that deal with the issue, but the problem lies with implementation.
“They are going to tell you that we have a Domestic Violence Act, they are going to tell you there is a domestic violence unit, they are going to say we have a domestic violence policy, they are going to say at the police stations there is supposed to be a room so you could feel comfortable when making reports. But in the reality women are dying; that is the reality with all these papers, and having the Domestic Violence Act of 1996, having a policy, having police persons sensitized and trained… having all of these wonderful pieces of legislation… but where we have a huge mountain to climb lies with the implementation,” she said.
She has repeatedly said publicly that the system failed her as she followed the Domestic Violence Act step by step right up to the courts, and yet she got no justice.
“I would always make the point that I went to court, I used the Domestic Violence Act, I did everything, every step was followed, got hospital records but yet still…” Cole recalled.
Cole said for some reason even the court that is supposed to be sensitive to issues affecting women appears not to be sensitive, since because of the traditional role of socialisation women are socialised to be submissive.
She called for a study that looks at gender equality and how men view it, as many of them do not like that term.
Cole disclosed that she has since dispatched a letter to Opposition Leader David Granger addressing the issue of domestic violence, as she recalled shortly after he became opposition leader Granger had met with the commission and he had suggested a study on the status of women. She told Granger in her letter that the Domestic Violence Act was impotent since it does not serve its purpose.
“I would like to say that study is needed and empirical data, because when we say it is on the increase somebody would say no, there is increased reporting, it was there all the time so there is the feeling that the media is making a hullaballoo about nothing,” Cole said.
Cole went on to indicate that she would be happy to play a part in conducting a study and she would be attempting to take steps to make this a reality once the necessary funding is provided. Among other things she would like to address how effective the 1996 Domestic Violence Act has been.
The social worker agreed with a recent statement made by Justice Roxane George at a forum that dealt with domestic violence where she had called for domestic violence to be treated the same way HIV and AIDS is treated. Cole also called for compensation for domestic violence victims as many who are left alive are maimed for life and need money for medical treatment.
“Unless we attach a cost to domestic violence we are not going to get… [any] sort of reduction; something must give,” she said.
