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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

UWI St Augustine Principal issues ‘A Call to Stop Gender-Based Violence’

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NEWS DESK
1610 days ago
20210209
Professor Brian Copeland, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal at The UWI St. Augustine Campus.  (Image courtesy The UWI)

Professor Brian Copeland, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal at The UWI St. Augustine Campus. (Image courtesy The UWI)

Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal at The UWI St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, Pro­fes­sor Bri­an Copeland, has is­sued a clar­i­on call to the na­tion, to bring an end to gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

And he al­so has pledged that The UWI will do its part to en­sure the re­quired so­cio-cul­tur­al change hap­pens.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, Pro­fes­sor Copeland laments the fact two of the Uni­ver­si­ty’s grad­u­ates had been mur­dered this year—An­drea Bharatt and Suzette Sylvester—both women, and both of whom had pur­sued cours­es from The UWI’s In­sti­tute of Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies (IGDS).

“The fact that both women were vic­tims of gen­der-based vi­o­lence means that, in spite of all the work done over the decades by the IGDS, as well as the dis­ci­plines of The UWI’s So­cial Sci­ences like Crim­i­nol­o­gy and So­ci­ol­o­gy, as well as the Hu­man­i­ties and oth­er ar­eas of study, much more needs to be done to erad­i­cate this scourge that re­flects one of the many ways a so­ci­ety can de­stroy it­self or, at best, regress in­to a pri­mal state,” Pro­fes­sor Copeland ob­serves in the news re­lease.

Ac­cord­ing to the UWI St Au­gus­tine Prin­ci­pal, there sev­er­al so­ci­etal prob­lems that man­i­fest them­selves in vi­o­lence or dis­crim­i­na­tion across bi­o­log­i­cal, eth­nic and cul­tur­al di­vides.  He is chal­leng­ing men in this coun­try to step up and make change hap­pen.

“I call on all cit­i­zens—men in par­tic­u­lar—to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for cre­at­ing and ac­tive­ly main­tain­ing safe spaces for the most vul­ner­a­ble in our midst. We need to call out and en­gage those who dis­play dis­re­spect for the women in our so­ci­ety,” he urges, “whether it be—for ex­am­ple, by is­su­ing in­sult­ing re­marks when their ad­vances are ig­nored, stalk­ing, or even en­ter­tain­ing songs that pro­mote sex­u­al vi­o­lence.”

Pro­fes­sor Copeland adds: “There is a so­cial pact that needs to be re­vis­it­ed that must strong­ly em­pha­sise a lev­el of emo­tion­al ma­tu­ri­ty, tol­er­ance and re­spect in our na­tion. This speaks to the role of par­ents and teach­ers in nur­tur­ing these and oth­er pos­i­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics in our cit­i­zens from birth.”

The UWI Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor says end­ing gen­der-based vi­o­lence de­mands trans­for­ma­tion at a fun­da­men­tal lev­el.

“We owe it to An­drea, Suzette, and the many vic­tims of gen­der-based vi­o­lence, to dri­ve a rad­i­cal cul­tur­al and at­ti­tu­di­nal change in this coun­try,” he states.

“As an in­sti­tu­tion, we will con­tin­ue our work to push the bound­aries of pol­i­cy, train­ing and so­ci­etal change in earnest,” he pledged.

Trinidad and TobagoThe University of the West IndiesWomenGender-based Violence


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