Men becoming champions for change

User Rating:  / 0

Details

Parent Category: Nov 2011

Category: Week ending Nov 12th, 2011

Published on Saturday, 12 November 2011 23:29

Hits: 849

A campaign has been launched in Grenada to encourage men to take a leading role in curbing domestic violence.

 Men from all walks of life were brought together last week at a two-day training workshop geared at sensitizing them about the problem of domestic violence.

 The workshop, which was held under the theme, “Men As Champions For Change”, was sponsored by the United Nations Entity for Gender, Equality and the Empowerment of Women, Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police in collaboration with the Government of Grenada.

 Minister of Social Development, Sylvester Quarless who addressed participants, indicated that violence in the Caribbean is at an alarming rate.

 Quarless said that while Grenada is seen as one of the safest places in the Caribbean, statistics show that there is a lot of work still to be done if the island is to be known internationally as a real safe zone for men and women.

 He noted that gender-based violence is one form of violence that is less reported on the island because of social injustice.

 According to the senior government minister, while women have been battered, raped, sexually assaulted and harassed, many men are also negatively affected by the problem of violence against women.

 He said boys who grow up in homes where there is domestic violence are often scared to stand up in support of their mother’s rights.

 “Many men also oppose violence against women, not just out of pity, but as a violation of human rights,” he added.

 Director of Social Development in the Ministry of Social Development, Veronica Charles who also spoke said that the Government of Grenada is committed to working with all its partners in helping to improve the capacity of all human resources through training and development.

 Charles sees the workshop as timely since it would have exposed participants to the effective techniques in championing change in men.

 She said it is expected that the men will be able to manage change amidst the growing complexities of manhood, as well as respond to issues surrounding male authority, power, control and gender-based violence, understanding gender equality and masculinity, appreciate the value of religion, spirituality and gender relations, and to effectively discuss family issues amidst the growing complaints of violence in the family, and offering solutions to address them.

 Senior Programme Officer of Gender and Family Affairs in the Ministry of Social Development, Elaine Henry-Mc Queen shared with participants an overview of violence against women in Grenada and announced that the ministry intends to undertake some actions to arrest the situation.

 Henry-Mc Queen said the main focus will be on treating the cause, and not only the signs and symptoms.

 “The three main areas will be capacity development, primary prevention, and strengthening response mechanisms,” she told the workshop.

 Henry-Mc Queen disclosed that over an eleven-year period, 2001 to 2010, there were one thousand, six hundred and thirty reported cases of sexual offenses in Grenada.

 Of this figure, she said the majority of reported cases were for indecent assault, defilement of a female, and rape.

 The annual average number of rape over the period under review is 29 cases in Grenada, but in 2009 alone, a total of 57 rapes were recorded.

 Up to the month of October, there were 31 cases of rape reported to the police.

 The Senior Programme Officer said her department is also aware that 504 of the births in that eleven-year period were to girls 13 to 16 years old which can be considered as statutory rape, or defilement of a female.

 Henry-Mc Queen said of the 73 homicides that took place in Grenada between 2004 and 2010, seven involving females and one involving a male person were due to intimate-partner domestic violence.

 In addition, the perpetrators of most of the crime were husbands killing their wives, a child’s father killing the mother, boyfriends killing their female partners, and a common-law wife killing her male partner.

 “These are what we have to live with in this Grenadian society,” said Henry-Mc Queen.

 She also made reference to domestic violence on the island and pointed out that in 2009, there was a total of 233 cases of domestic violence recorded by the police, and 131 by the Ministry of Social Development Domestic Violence Unit.

 The most prevalent forms reported were physical abuse and verbal abuse.

 Within the first nine months of 2011, some 208 protection orders were sought in the law courts throughout the country.

 Henry-Mc Queen stressed that since Grenada is a small country, the figures are quite startling.

 Facilitator of the workshop, Tyrone Buckmire said it is recognised that men are the primary perpetrators of gender-based violence and as such they can exert tremendous influence on their peers to ensure that the problem is addressed.

• < Prev
• Next >