Despite a surfeit of good-intentioned, positive local programmes on which billions of dollars are being spent, the other pandemic, the one in which mostly women and girls are harmed, maimed and killed, races on unabated. Over time, whenever there is a flurry of domestic or gender-based violence reports or femicides, as has been the case recently, there has been a tendency by government officials and the media to refer to them as a spate. While perhaps this it not the intent, it does give the mistaken impression that there are periods when there are no occurrences of violence against women. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Globally, according to data published by the World Health Organisation this year, more than 640 million women (one in four) aged 15 and older have experienced or are experiencing violence at the hands of a partner. Further, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s Global Study on Homicide published in 2019 found that 137 women are killed every day by a current or former partner or family member.
The local situation mirrors the global one. While the more horrific stories tend to make the news, the Guyana Police Force revealed in March this year that it had received 1,662 reports of domestic violence last year, 213 more than were made in 2019. That equals four reports a day in 2020 and three per day in 2019. These figures did not include the femicides that occurred as a result of domestic or gender-based violence.
In response to these atrocities, and as a means of preventing them, the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security in collaboration with partners launched the Spotlight Initiative, which aims to educate, spread awareness, and provide intervention to victims of violence regardless of gender and age. A new hotline, 914, specifically for reports of violence against women, is part of the initiative. There is also the Gender-Based Violence Service Guide App, launched in March, that provides access to information, support and assistance.
Just last week, the ministry announced the intention to pilot the Women’s Innovation and Investment Network (WIIN), which seeks to empower women and girls and help them become financially independent, in Baramita, Region One. Explaining the concept behind WIIN, Human Services and Social Security Minister Dr Vindhya Persaud hinted that a financially independent woman might be in a better position to remove herself from an abusive relationship. While that has successfully occurred in a few instances, it is unfortunately not a one-size-fits-all solution. In fact, global research has found that domestic violence survivors are 3.6 times more likely to be killed when leaving or after having left, than if they stayed. The growing number of local women killed by ex-partners and former spouses also attests to this pattern.
As recent as this week, Minister Persaud also announced plans to extend legal aid services, family and couples counselling and provide more domestic violence shelters as well as a public education and awareness campaign that will focus on anger management among other things. This minister appears to be truly relentless in her bid to curb the plague of domestic violence. More than likely, given her profession as a medical doctor, she would have seen the physical and emotional trauma caused by this scourge manifested in patients over the years.
There is a genuineness to Minister Persaud’s approach which belies the notion that what she is doing is just a job and that is commendable. One hopes then that unlike her predecessors she will at the very least begin the process of getting to the root of the problem. While law enforcement and legal protection, shelter, empowerment and financial stability are all absolutely necessary in combatting domestic violence, their impact will always be limited. The reason being that women do not cause domestic violence; it is inflicted on them. Concentrating primarily on women and fixing laws, therefore, do not address the crux of the matter.
Anti-violence advocates have long been clamouring for a holistic approach to dealing with this blight on humanity, which would place significant focus on men and boys. It is simple really: you cannot end abuse unless you can stop the abusers and to do that requires digging deep. Ergo, the campaigns and workshops targeting men over the years, while better than nothing, merely gloss over the surface.
Exorcising the demon that is domestic violence therefore requires perseverance and must go beyond merely identifying and working with perpetrators. Social and historic norms like patriarchy that maintain sexist attitudes and the concept that men have power over women have to be dismantled. The toxic masculinity which suggests that men who intervene or call out friends or colleagues over their abuse of women are somehow ‘letting the side down’ must be also stamped out.
As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined; we learn how to behave based on the beliefs, values and actions surrounding our upbringing. Ongoing awareness and education must target boys, children in general, so that negative messages and problematic cultural norms can be discarded. If we are to truly uproot this plague, there can be no bystanders. Anyone not part of the solution becomes part of the problem and there is no quick fix.
