In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day (IWD), cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly on this date, is an oc­ca­sion to re­flect on the sta­tus of women, cel­e­brate achieve­ments and gauge progress to­ward gen­der par­i­ty in the full knowl­edge that an equal world is an en­abled world.

For T&T, to­day's com­mem­o­ra­tions are over­shad­owed, un­for­tu­nate­ly, by the wors­en­ing prob­lem of gen­der-based vi­o­lence. Lo­cal groups that have been host­ing IWD ac­tiv­i­ties since Fri­day have been us­ing the oc­ca­sion to draw na­tion­al at­ten­tion to the fact that al­ready for this year 11 women have been mur­dered, nine of them as a re­sult of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

The is­sue has been, of ne­ces­si­ty, very much on the front burn­er since the com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Day For the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Woman last No­vem­ber 25 and there have been some de­vel­op­ments since then.

The Gov­ern­ment will short­ly ta­ble amend­ments to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act and has al­ready giv­en an un­der­tak­ing to es­tab­lish sys­tems for mon­i­tor­ing bracelets to be placed on in­di­vid­u­als against whom pro­tec­tion or­ders have been is­sued. The T&T Po­lice Unit now has a Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit, sig­nif­i­cant­ly ramp­ing up their ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond to in­ci­dents of abuse.

But there is still a very long road ahead. The truth is that this coun­try is not safe for women and girls. The re­cent heart-rend­ing case of lit­tle Mukeisha, who was killed in the one place she should have been safe, her home, high­lights that re­al­i­ty, as well as the re­cent cas­es of women killed by abu­sive part­ners who breached pro­tec­tion or­ders.

This is the grim state of af­fairs that re­cent­ly prompt­ed some NGOs, led by the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, to de­liv­er a pe­ti­tion to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter call­ing for ac­tion.

Their very valid con­cerns about the in­ad­e­qua­cy of sys­tems and in­fra­struc­ture to fight gen­der-based vi­o­lence de­mand im­me­di­ate ac­tion. In ad­di­tion to strength­en­ing and up­dat­ing leg­is­la­tion, there is an ur­gent mat­ter of in­suf­fi­cient shel­ters to house women and chil­dren at­tempt­ing to es­cape from abu­sive sit­u­a­tions.

There should be at least one fam­i­ly space pro­vid­ed for every 10,000 pop­u­la­tion which in T&T means 130 such spaces in shel­ters around the coun­try. This coun­try is nowhere close to that stan­dard. Of the few shel­ters in op­er­a­tion, three have shut down—one for re­pairs and the oth­ers in­def­i­nite­ly.

These and the oth­er gaps in the sys­tem are be­ing ex­ploit­ed by per­pe­tra­tors who can eas­i­ly stalk and slaugh­ter their vic­tims, of­ten in broad day­light.

Guardian Me­dia, stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with all the groups and coura­geous in­di­vid­u­als on the front lines of this bat­tle, to­day ap­peals for IWD 2020 to be the start­ing point for re­newed ef­forts against gen­der-based abuse in all its forms. This is a bat­tle that re­quires the in­volve­ment of all law-abid­ing, right-think­ing cit­i­zens.

Mak­ing this coun­try a safe place where women and girls can thrive will be a ma­jor step to­ward gen­der par­i­ty.