The op­por­tu­ni­ty should not be wast­ed, while there is so much at­ten­tion on the cri­sis in our midst, to ac­tive­ly de­vel­op and im­ple­ment so­lu­tions to the prob­lem that has con­sumed so much time and en­er­gy in re­cent days.

All the vig­ils and march­es will be of lit­tle ef­fect un­less there is hon­est di­a­logue, un­taint­ed by po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence, about the end­ing gen­der-based vi­o­lence across T&T.

To bring about change for a bet­ter T&T, vi­o­lence against women and girls must be seen for what it is—a hu­man rights vi­o­la­tion, as well as so­cial jus­tice and pub­lic health cri­sis. It must al­so be clear­ly un­der­stood to be an ex­pres­sion of the un­equal re­la­tions be­tween men and women that are deeply root­ed in our so­ci­ety.

Trans­form­ing T&T in­to a safe and just coun­try that is free from vi­o­lence will re­quire a lot of hard work and a lev­el of com­mit­ment from our most in­flu­en­tial de­ci­sion-mak­ers and or­di­nary cit­i­zens that have so far not been ap­par­ent.

Work­ing to bring about pos­i­tive change at in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive, leg­isla­tive-po­lit­i­cal, and so­cial lev­els needs to take on greater ur­gency fol­low­ing re­cent trag­ic events as well as the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic which has been con­tribut­ing to even more gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

Re­cent amend­ments to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act were just the first steps in the long process of build­ing a safer T&T. This is a coun­try with a long his­to­ry of pass­ing leg­is­la­tion that has been im­ple­ment­ed poor­ly or not at all.

Changes in leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies must go to­geth­er with ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ty mo­bil­i­sa­tion.

There­fore, build­ing on the mo­men­tum of the past few days, there should be a push for ad­vo­ca­cy and mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paigns to ed­u­cate and change the at­ti­tudes and be­hav­iours of com­mu­ni­ties and in­di­vid­u­als.

With so many cit­i­zens pay­ing at­ten­tion, it is time to or­gan­ise sen­si­ti­sa­tion meet­ings and de­vel­op pro­grammes for peer ed­u­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty the­atre, “ed­u­ca­tion­al en­ter­tain­ment” on TV and ra­dio, and oth­er forms of mass com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion should col­lab­o­rate with the rel­e­vant state agen­cies and civ­il so­ci­ety on a na­tion­al ac­tion plan to com­bat gen­der-based vi­o­lence in schools. If nec­es­sary, there should be a re­vi­sion of the min­istry's code of con­duct to ad­dress gen­der vi­o­lence more ex­plic­it­ly in schools.

Vi­o­lence against women and ha­rass­ment should be themes cov­ered in the yet to be im­ple­ment­ed health and sex­u­al ed­u­ca­tion pro­grammes in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools.

At the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, there have not been suf­fi­cient ef­forts to en­gage men and boys so that they con­tribute to end­ing vi­o­lence against women. This is among the many im­por­tant ways to bring about changes in at­ti­tudes and so­cial norms.

Al­so im­por­tant is fa­cil­i­tat­ing on­go­ing re­search, mon­i­tor­ing, and eval­u­a­tion to make sure the work to end gen­der-based vi­o­lence is rel­e­vant and ef­fec­tive.

By chang­ing norms and at­ti­tudes which fos­ter vi­o­lence, em­ploy­ing a mul­ti-sec­toral ap­proach and work at dif­fer­ent lev­els—in­di­vid­ual, com­mu­ni­ty and in­sti­tu­tion­al—T&T can be­come a safer coun­try.

What is re­quired is some se­ri­ous ground­work now, lay­ing sol­id foun­da­tions and build­ing on them rather than a flur­ry of hasty, poor­ly de­vel­oped mea­sures in re­sponse to a tragedy.