By: Staff Writer
November 26, 2021
A targeted $50m is being rolled out to help put an end to violence against women in the Caribbean.
Domestic violence in the Caribbean is not uncommon. Due to the region’s oftentimes “conservative view” on gender roles, it often goes by with a wink and a nod while the abused individual suffers in torment.
Addressing this challenge comes with a multi-dimensional approach that needs a shift in the mind-set towards what is seen as traditional gender roles and work towards helping, firstly the abused to seek help and pathways out of their situation while simultaneously shaping the mind-set of the following generation to act in a different way than their forefathers.
Hence the Spotlight initiative is doing such work in the region, with the help of the European Union and the UN, the agency is helping to roll out 500m Euros worldwide with $50m of that being spent in the Caribbean to help change attitudes towards gender roles in their effort to stamp out domestic violence and violence against women by 2030.
Mr. Didier Trebucq, United Nations resident coordinator for Barbados and the eastern Caribbean, said at the CDB hosted webinar in conjunction with the United Nations, titled, “Innovating to Address Gender-Based Violence,” that: “The Spotlight initiative is currently being implemented across six Caribbean countries, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Guyana, Belize, and Haiti alongside the original programme for the whole Caribbean region. And this represent a total investment in this region of $50 million.”
The Spotlight Initiative is a global, multi-year partnership between the European Union and the United Nations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls by 2030.
The Spotlight Initiative is deploying targeted, large-scale investments to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific.
The Spotlight initiative is involved in promoting gender equal laws and policies as well as engaging civil society in dialogue.
Mr Trebucq also said: “A few of the spotlight initiatives interventions that promote precisely innovation and knowledge sharing. For example, the recently launched Caribbean observatory on sexual and reproductive health and right, which seeks to promote *inaudible* cooperation, innovation and expertise.
“The observatory will be hosted by civil society which makes it independent and provides more room to test new approaches to improve coverage, access to an uptick of both sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender based violence services.
He continued, “The spotlight initiative, for example, is also supporting the establishment of a CARICOM specific regional digital observatory and Knowledge Hub to host all of the existing available and future data, prevalence surveys such as the prevalence surveys that have been elaborated recently by UN woman and will in collaboration of the Caribbean Development Bank; research as well an evaluations toolkit and any other existing resources on gender violence in the region.
“Really, we see this representative of data as a means to enable us to better track the trends to end gender based violence.”
The international Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was observed on November 25, 2021. The UN is also marking the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence from 25 November to 10 December 2021, under the global theme set by the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE campaign: “Orange the World: End Violence against Women Now!”
Tonni Brodber, representative of the UN Women Multi-Country Office- Caribbean, also said: “One in three women face physical or sexual, intimate partner violence or sexual violence from a non-intimate partner in their lifetime. Unfortunately, she added: “Our region is leading in the wrong direction on these statistics
“Prevalent surveys that have been conducted by UN Women’s statistical Institute’s in different countries, IDB and CDB, have found that on average across five countries surveyed 46 percent of women who have ever been in a partnership have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence. That’s almost one in two women.
The administrative data also tells us that this has really increased in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic where in the face of heightened stresses and strains, many women are trapped at home with violent partners. Yet long before the pandemic, the World Bank and UN ODC found that three of the top 10 countries with the highest rates of rape were in the Caribbean. The problem is therefore significant.”
Calling for a multidimensional approach to tackling this problem, Ms Brodber said further about the progress the Spotlight initiative is making, “The spotlight initiative employs an all of community approach, recognizing that each and every one of us whether from government development organizations, essential services, civil society, the private sector and the media has a role to play in ending violence against women and girls.
“We have aligned this seminar to the six spotlight initiatives pillars in recognition that they provide a useful and effective framework for addressing the complex problem of gender based violence.
“As we all work across the region towards the shared objective of ending violence against women and girls, it is really vital that we create spaces to share our innovations, celebrate the better practices, hold ourselves accountable to where we need to go and build on the lessons learned from the challenges and successes. Through knowledge transfer and cross fertilization, we will continue to make our work even more effective and coordinated.”