The recruitment process of the Spotlight Initiative has been put on hold, according to Sylvie Fouet, UNICEF’s Representative here, even as several organisations have expressed concern about aspects of the project such as restorative justice in domestic violence as they believe such settings in Guyana will put the safety and well-being of survivors at risk.
The Spotlight Initiative is a global, multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls and in the Caribbean it is being implemented in Guyana, Belize, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
Danuta Radzik and Josephine Whitehead of Help and Shelter, Karen de Souza and Wintress White of Red Thread, Vidyaratha Kissoon and Janice Jackson all signed their names to a recent letter in this newspaper in which they expressed serious concerns about a specific aspect of the project.
“The greatest risk of restorative justice is, however, that all the gains made by the women’s movement in Guyana to move gender-based violence including domestic violence out of the private and into the public realm will be reversed and domestic violence will be driven underground and accepted as an issue for the privacy of the home and the partners involved,” the letter said.
They went as far to state that it will be a fatal blow to gender equality in Guyana and the fundamental right of women and girls to live lives free from violence and the fear of violence.
Saying that they are dismayed and concerned by recent advertisements for a consultancy for the assessment and development of a policy on restorative justice and implementation of the practice in Guyana, the signatories of the letter asked the UN bodies, and in particular UNICEF, to share the context in which restorative justice was proposed and discussed. They asked the question particularly in light of the fact that during consultations they raised concerns and were invited to a meeting on February 13, 2020 to discuss these which they had documented. They left the meeting with the assurance that the concerns raised were acknowledged and heard and would be shared with the UN agencies in Guyana responsible for the implementation of the project.
“Assurances were also given that Spotlight Guyana had processes in place for civil society oversight of this initiative through the Civil Society Reference Group, which at the time was open for nominations. The advertisement in the press indicates that either concerns raised were not shared or that they were dismissed,” the letter stated.
However, when contacted by The Weekend, Fouet stated that that the consultancies were advertised as a part of preparatory action to have a list of consultants available knowing the recruitment process takes time.
“Now in consultation with the related CSOs [Civil Society Organisations], the recruitment process is put on hold until [there is] a discussion on the work-plan in general and this specific subject in particular is finalized with Spotlight stakeholders,” she said in response to a query.
The signatories to the letter pointed out that Help and Shelter and Red Thread have worked continuously over the past 25+ years with victims and survivors of domestic violence and children traumatized through exposure to domestic violence directly and indirectly.
“It is our view, based on their expertise and substantial working knowledge, that the use of restorative justice in domestic violence settings in Guyana will put the safety and well-being of survivors at serious risk, lead to re-traumatization of survivors and will ignore the power dynamic of domestic violence that entraps victims and survivors in a cycle of abuse, at the core of which is the exertion of power and control by one partner (the abuser) over the other partner (the victim/survivor) through the use of physical, sexual, psychological and economic abuse,” they noted.
It was pointed out that restorative justice uses mediation and negotiation supposedly between two adults on the basis of equality, while the power dynamic of domestic violence is unequal power and control by one person over another, which is how domestic violence occurs and re-occurs.
“No mediator or mediation process of one or two sessions will change this, especially due to the complexity of domestic violence. Unfortunately, more than likely the survivor will be intimidated by the presence of the abusive partner and the domestic violence violations will be trivialized. In such unequal conditions, justice cannot be served,” they further pointed out.
It was stated that it was hard to fathom why it is proposed to introduce restorative justice when it does not appear to have worked successfully in practice for domestic violence. According to the letter, evidence referenced in the Spotlight document on the Domestic Violence Act shows that 71% of all applications for protection orders were granted, which is testimony to the success of the Act for survivors of domestic violence, bolstered by education of magistrates and judicial officers on the dynamics of domestic violence and the Act.
“It is hard to understand why a consultancy to address behavioural change such as capacity-building at community and regional levels in counselling, including lay counselling training and delivery and programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence, including court-sanctioned accredited counselling and behaviour change programmes for both survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence would not be a priority instead of restorative justice and mediation,” they pointed out.
To believe that survivors or perpetrators of domestic violence will take advantage of restorative justice and mediation will be a mistake, the letter writers said, as all indications and research show that many do not opt to go that route and there is no guarantee that if they do, the perpetrators will abide by any agreements reached. Further, it is well known that it is only after an average of 10-40 acts of physical, sexual, psychological and economic domestic violence experienced by women that reports are made to police and other agencies.
$1 billion
Under the United Nations’ initiative, Guyana will benefit from $1 billion (€4.5 million) to end all forms of violence against women and girls, and to ensure that they realise their full potential in a violence-free, gender-responsive and inclusive way.
The programme is expected to be implemented over the next three years and several communities will be targeted in Regions 4 and 5 (Coastland) and Regions 1 and 7 (Hinterland).
The initiative is a global one that was launched in September 2017 with a European Union contribution of €500 million. It galvanizes political commitment in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) and promotes a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach to gender-based violence. The UN is also striving to model a new kind of partnership with governments, civil society and communities and across the UN system to deliver on the SDGs comprehensively.
