Yesterday’s assertive refrain against “wanton incidents of domestic violence against women” by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry is to be commended. We believe it is timely and that it is reflective of a sentiment which, on the whole, casts the Chamber itself in an uplifting light. The pattern of domestic violence in Guyana is, increasingly, extending itself down a grisly road which has manifested not just in the physical and mental abuse of women within the family setting but also in gruesome killings of women by male partners. It sometimes appears that we have become sufficiently indifferent to these travesties to allow them to pass without murmur.
What the chamber’s ‘shout out’ has done is, one hopes, to provide a welcome reminder that the private sector as a whole is not so engrossed in ‘getting on with the business of maximizing profits’ that it remains indifferent to travesties like violence against women.
Sadly, we have arrived at a juncture where refrains like the GCCI’s recent missive, welcome and commendable though they are, are no longer enough. The private sector can be an animated tool for the aggressive promotion, in various ways, of an uncompromising position in the matter of violence against women. It can employ the various powerful marketing tools that it has at its disposal to send creatively composed and poignant messages to transgressors that, at the level of both individual business houses as well as the Business Support Institutions (BSI’s) themselves, warranted action will be taken to send suitably robust messages signaling its uncompromising abhorrence of the practice of violence against women. There is nothing wrong, for example, with business houses displaying on their premises respectful but firm and prominent notices declaring their disdain for violence against women.
It is high time too for the private sector and other influential national institutions to do what they can to seek to apply direct, appropriate and sensitive corrective interventions in instances where evidence or even strong suspicion of violence against women might arise. If the laws ‘on paper’ are failing to make a difference then the demonstrable animated objection of the private sector and other of our high-profile non-governmental institutions must be pressed into service in this regard.
