JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, July 28, 2025

A long road ahead

by

1968 days ago
20200307
Editorial

Editorial

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.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored