Akash Sama­roo

To­mor­row, the names of mur­dered women and girls will be held aloft not on­ly as a re­minder that so­ci­ety con­tin­ues to fail vic­tims and sur­vivors of gen­der-based vi­o­lence, but to al­so alert passers-by that the tak­ing of lives will not be nor­malised in this coun­try.

This is how the Caribbean Gen­der Al­liance (CGA) will kick start the 16 Days of Ac­tivism against Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence which be­gins on No­vem­ber 25 and ends on De­cem­ber 10.

“We want to en­sure that when women lose their lives to vi­o­lence it’s not just sen­sa­tion­al­ism, it’s not just some­thing for news­pa­pers to sell copies or to give the tele­vi­sion sta­tions views at news time and then the pub­lic for­gets about it in a cou­ple days, ‘We Re­mem­ber’ lit­er­al­ly is an event that brings home that the peo­ple who lost their lives are re­al peo­ple who meant some­thing to their chil­dren and par­ents,” ex­plained CGA chair­man Nadel­la Oya.

Oya de­scribed to­mor­row’s 11 am gath­er­ing at the Memo­r­i­al Park, in Port of Spain, as an “oc­cu­py-style” event where school chil­dren and any­one in­ter­est­ed can join in sol­i­dar­i­ty. Oya said or­ange t-shirts will be dis­trib­uted to at­ten­dees with the mes­sage, “I have the pow­er to end vi­o­lence against women and girls.”

Guardian Me­dia spoke with Oya at their Cre­ate­fu­ture­good head­quar­ters at Chancery Lane on No­vem­ber 9 while her vol­un­teers were busy paint­ing signs of the names of vic­tims of Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence.

Pieces of bris­tol board with the names Rac­quel, Ri­ana, Aaliyah, An­na-Marie, Sher­ryann, Shadie were lit­tered on a ta­ble, more names were hid­den un­der­neath, more names were be­ing paint­ed every minute, all had their lives tak­en from them by a man.

“It is very emo­tion­al,” Oya said look­ing at the vol­un­teers, “it is trig­ger­ing be­cause we are not just look­ing at these women’s names or flash­ing their pic­tures but we’re do­ing the re­search and paint­ing the ages they were when they passed away and how they died.”

One of the sign painters was 23-year-old Nek­isha So­rias, a youth vol­un­teer. So­rias ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia her mo­ti­va­tion for ded­i­cat­ing her time to this cause.

“As a young fe­male in Trinidad and To­ba­go I want­ed to make a dif­fer­ence, I want­ed to put in the work and I felt this was a bet­ter than just talk­ing about change.”

So­rias said it is para­mount that young peo­ple con­tin­ue civ­il so­ci­ety’s work.

“Plen­ty young peo­ple don’t watch the news, but they are al­ways on their phones so in com­ing to the event, tak­ing pic­tures of the names, tak­ing videos, that’s where I feel where my gen­er­a­tion could sup­port and help, we have the tools to am­pli­fy things if we con­stant­ly post to our so­cial me­dia pages peo­ple will know about it and it will make a larg­er im­pact.”

Guardian Me­dia no­ticed there were no male vol­un­teers and So­rias want­ed the men and boys of the coun­try to know that they too are vic­tims and sur­vivors of Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence and there­fore should join the cause.

Mean­while, the Co­or­di­na­tor of the Net­work of NGOs of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, Jacque­line Burgess re­mind­ed Guardian Me­dia that while the 16 Days of Ac­tivism is im­por­tant, their work is year­long.

“The vi­o­lence does not stop, we have to find help for peo­ple some­times their chil­dren have to be tak­en care of, we have to find a home for them, we help them de­vel­op a skill so they can get a job so it’s not that we rest back and wait for these 16 days, things are hap­pen­ing.”

Burgess lament­ed that the pub­lic some­times un­fair­ly crit­i­cizes the women’s move­ment for their some­times-per­ceived ab­sence.

“Where are you?” Burgess asked to those peo­ple, “and what are you do­ing? Be­cause most of the peo­ple who ask where is the women’s move­ment, they have a plat­form in the me­dia but you don’t see them in the trench­es or com­ing for­ward with ideas and rec­om­men­da­tions or ask­ing “how can I help?” Every­body has a role to play.”

Burgess al­so high­light­ed the Spot­light Ini­tia­tive which is a glob­al ini­tia­tive of the Unit­ed Na­tions fund­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Union. Its aim is to elim­i­nate all forms of vi­o­lence against women and girls.

“They are look­ing at fam­i­ly vi­o­lence and gen­der-based vi­o­lence and they have made re­sources avail­able so that civ­il so­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tions who are do­ing the work are able to do projects to en­hance and to re­al­ly make it a re­al­i­ty.”

Oya al­so hailed the Spot­light Ini­tia­tive for am­pli­fy­ing the fight to end vi­o­lence against women and girls.