More than half of Guyana’s women (55%) have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime, according to the first comprehensive national survey on gender-based violence in Guyana.
“Physical violence was reported more commonly than sexual violence (35 per cent vs 9 per cent lifetime; 14 per cent vs 4 per cent current), which may be in part due to a reluctance to disclose sexual violence outside of a trusting relationship. Emotional violence, typically the most common dimension of IPV, was reported by 40 per cent of respondents over their lifetimes and 17 per cent over the past 12 months,” the survey said.
The survey was released yesterday at a public forum convened at Cara Lodge and most of the speakers, inclusive of Minister of Social Protection Amna Ally and Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana Lilian Chatterjee agreed that the survey is not only timely but one that is needed to ensure the country’s response to violence against women can be more strategic.
In Guyana violence against women continues to be on the rise and for this year alone some nine women have been killed by an intimate partner.
In light of the findings the survey recommended that Guyana adopt evidence-based programmes that have been shown to be successful in other areas to the multicultural Guyanese context.
Titled the Guyana Women’s Health and Life Experiences Survey (WHLES) it was conducted using the CARICOM model, a measurement adapted from the original WHO (World Health Organization) global model for assessing the prevalence of violence against women in the Caribbean. The survey captures information on the risk of and consequences of violence for women, their children and families and how and to what extent they seek help.
Other findings of the report include that 1 in 5 (or 20 per cent of) women in Guyana have experienced non-partner sexual abuse in their lifetime; 13% reported experiencing this abuse before the age of 18. Meantime it was stated that being young is the most significant risk factor for non-partner sexual violence (NPSV), including rape, attempted rape, unwanted sexual touching and sexual harassment while the 15-24 age group reported statistically higher rates of NPSV of every type (the 55–64 age group reported the least).
All ten regions
According to one of the authors of the survey, Roxanne Myers, the survey was conducted in all ten administrative region in Guyana and some 2054 households were visited in 175 communities. She said that there were 1,498 respondents and those surveyed had to indicate their willingness by signing a consent form and the survey was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Ministry of Public Health.
The types of violence the survey explored were intimate partner violence (IPV), physical, sexual economic, emotional, and the non-partner sexual violence.
Myers shared that as a child she witnessed her mother experiencing violence and she always tried to “grapple with why she didn’t leave with five children.”
She stressed that reports of domestic violence have to mean something in workplaces especially to senior managers. She pointed out that the report indicates that half of the women in the workforce have experienced some form of violence over the course of their lives.
“So as senior managers, wherever we are, we have to be cautious of this fact, whether the stories of the women are known to us or not we have to be cautious and sensitive to what those experiences are,” she said while speaking on the report.
One of the strategic approaches while conducting the research was to use advisory boards and committees and this resulted in a national coordinating committee and a research committee. The members included Danuta Radzik, Karen de Souza and Dr. Dawn Stewart and they provided critical advice to the research team in terms of the approaches to be taken and Myers described this as a “critical aspect” of the report which also saw them reviewing the draft report and providing inputs.
The methodology was culled from what the World Health Organisation has done globally and the Global Women’s Institute led the methodology and provided training for the 49 enumerators and six supervisors.
Most common
Meanwhile, the survey found that being slapped or having an object thrown at a woman was the most common act of physical violence reported by ever-partnered women with choking and burning being the least reported acts.
Most of the women reporting IPV reported having sexual intercourse with their partners because they were afraid to refuse. Three per cent of women reported engaging in sexual intercourse with their partners through force or fear in the past 12 months preceding the survey.
And among the women reporting violence more than two thirds reported experiencing severe violence over the course of their lives. Among those who reported violence in the last 12 months about one in ten experienced at least one act of severe violence during that time.
For the men who experienced physical and/or sexual violence, nearly two-thirds reported that the violence occurred more than once, for those who experienced violence in the past year, 83% reported more than one occurrence, with 80% reporting that it occurred with the same or more frequency than prior to the past 12 months.
Traditional roles
The report said that most of the respondents agreed with the “inequitable traditional gender roles having to do with family hierarchy.” Some 83% of them agreed that it is natural that men should be the head of the home and 78% agreed that a woman’s most important role is to take care of her home. However, some embraced the feminist perspectives in their responses to other questions on gender roles. For example 88% agreed that men and women should share authority in the household and 83% agreed that women should have economic autonomy, spending her own money according to her wishes.
“Fewer than half (44%) agreed that women should always obey their husbands, and only one in four (28%) believed that women had a sexual obligation to their husbands,” the report said.
Only 10% of the women surveyed agreed with the statement that a woman should tolerate violence to keep her family together while about 25% supported violence between partners being a private matter. And regarding violence from non-partners, 24% of women agreed with the statement that “it is not rape if a woman does not fight back” and 13% felt that a woman’s carelessness contributes to her being raped.
The report found that attitudes promoting acceptance and privacy surrounding intimate partner violence support perceptions of men’s “right” to physical chastisement and shields them from the consequences of enshrined laws and policies.
“They also reinforce stigma and acceptance of violence as a private matter for women when police officers or other actors are thwarted in their attempts to intervene, demonstrating that there is no recourse for them and that they should remain hidden,” the report concluded.
Violence in pregnancy
According to the survey the majority of women (97%) participating in the survey have been pregnant at least once and nearly one in ten reported having experienced violence in pregnancy. Among women who experienced this violence the vast majority (92%) reported violence during their most recent pregnancy. The violence was perpetuated by the father of the child, with 30% targeting the pregnancy by punching or kicking her in the abdomen.
And for half of the women who experienced violence during pregnancy, the violence was a continuation of pre-pregnancy violence with a big majority (84%) reporting that the severity worsened.
Importantly the data collected indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in violence between ethnic groups and that Indo-Guyanese women reported the least physical and sexual IPV (34%).
“This directly contradicts the persistent belief in Guyana that women of Indian descent experience the highest rates of IPV. This belief was described in focus group discussions and supported by additional cultural beliefs that Indo-Guyanese men are more controlling and their wives more served and subservient than Afro-Guyanese or indigenous wives,” the survey said.
It was found as well that 48% of women in the 55 to 64 group reported experiencing emotional violence, compared to 30 % in the 15 to 24 age group. Similarly, 39% of women aged 45 to 64 reported experiencing physical violence, while 27% of the youngest group, aged 15 to 24 reported similarly.
