Whereas most information media, within the States and all over the world, has been targeted on the U.S election, current occasions in Syria, the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, and the ever extra absurd and unqualified appointments of convict-elect Donald Trump, a crucial marketing campaign addressing gender-based violence and femicides all over the world has come and gone with little fanfare.
Our Caribbean neighbors have been preventing again in opposition to a rising tide of GBV, many using “Push Forward” as a hashtag. Because the United Nations’ Tonni Brodber and Simon Springett wrote for the Caribbean Information Service final week:
Right here’s Brodber, consultant of the UN Ladies Multi-Nation Workplace- Caribbean, in a “Push Forward” public service announcement.
Let’s have a look at among the information. Right here’s a brief video from UN Ladies:
Whereas that video focuses on world numbers, the United Nations Financial Fee for Latin America and the Caribbean experiences, “At Least 11 Women Are Victims of Femicide Every Day in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
In 2023, at the very least 3,897 ladies had been victims of femicide or feminicide in 27 international locations and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. This implies at the very least 11 violent deaths of ladies on daily basis as a consequence of their gender, in response to data that official companies reported to the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (GEO) of the Financial Fee for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
[…]
“In 2023, at least 11 women were murdered every day for gendered-related reasons in Latin America and the Caribbean. This painful and unacceptable number reminds us that, despite progress with laws and protocols, feminicide is still present in our region and is the most extreme expression of patriarchal and violent patterns. It is time for urgent action,” acknowledged José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Government Secretary of ECLAC, main as much as Ending Violence Towards Ladies Day, which is commemorated yearly on 25 November and begins 16 days of activism via 10 December, Human Rights Day.
[…]
Within the Caribbean, at the very least 20 ladies had been victims of gender-related violence leading to demise in 2023, in response to data reported by 9 international locations and territories. Jamaica (13 feminicides), Suriname (4), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (2) and Belize (1) had been the international locations that reported instances within the final yr.
Based on ECLAC, it is very important make clear that every nation data victims of feminicide, femicide, or violent deaths of ladies for gender-related causes in accordance with its authorized classification and offers data at totally different factors all through its processes of prison or judicial investigation, and it’s due to this fact not attainable to make a strict comparability of this indicator between international locations.
[…]
The ECLAC report additionally highlights the truth that feminicide violence impacts all ages: over 75% of victims had been between 15 and 59 years outdated, however 3% had been women beneath 15, and 10% had been over age 60.
Word: Feminicide is a phrase sometimes used within the Caribbean and Latin America to explain gender-based violence in opposition to ladies, whereas different international locations use femicide.
The Financial Fee for Latin America (ECLA) -the Spanish acronym is CEPAL- was established by Financial and Social Council decision 106(VI) of 25 February 1948 and started to operate that very same yr. The scope of the Fee’s work was later broadened to incorporate the international locations of the Caribbean, and by decision 1984/67 of 27 July 1984, the Financial Council determined to vary its identify to the Financial Fee for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); the Spanish acronym, CEPAL, stays unchanged.
Reporting from Barbados, CBC Information lined native “16 Days” occasions, which included remarks from Brenda Wills, the Excessive Commissioner of Canada to Barbados.
I used to be delighted to seek out this 88-minute dialog with-with scholar Taitu Heron, which was hosted by Equality Bahams on Dec. 5.
From the Equality Bahamas YouTube video notes:
Femicide is the killing of a girl or woman due to her intercourse or gender. The time period shouldn’t be utilized in The Bahamas or the remainder of the Caribbean which implies the killings of ladies and women are usually not correctly counted or analyzed. We’ll be in dialog with Taitu Heron about her analysis on femicide in choose international locations within the Caribbean. We’re positive to get into instances of femicide, together with at the very least one which resulted from neglect by the State. We’re trying ahead to discovering a manner ahead in analysis on femicide and guaranteeing that instances are recorded and the evaluation contributes to the work to forestall femicide and gender-based violence.
Heron has additionally put collectively an informative slideshow on femicide.
Femicide Traits within the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica (2017-2022)
Within the Caribbean, femicide is an ongoing disaster, but it’s typically underreported and under-analyzed as a consequence of gaps in information assortment, gaps in addressing instances of home violence within the court docket methods, under-reporting to regulation enforcements and inconsistencies in media protection. This paper examines the developments, patterns and authorized implications of femicide in Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Barbados between 2017 and 2022. This research goals to contextualize femicide throughout the broader framework of GBV and supply preliminary and exploratory insights about what we must always or may do.
The “Smile Jamaica” morning present on Tv Jamaica welcomed Ruth Howard, Program Supervisor for WE-Discuss: For the Discount of Gender-Primarily based Violence, to debate the “16 Days” initiative.
Transferring over to Puerto Rico, in June, Mariela Santos-Muñiz wrote about the commonest method taken as femicides surge on the island.
Gun violence is taking part in a rising function in Puerto Rico’s femicide disaster
Authorized weapons are actually the commonest software for finishing up femicidesIn July 2023, a former boxer was convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend in Puerto Rico—a grotesque crime that drew consideration to the island’s epidemic of gender-based violence. The boxer was discovered accountable for kidnapping resulting in demise and inflicting the demise of an unborn baby. Based on court docket paperwork, the boxer drugged and beat his girlfriend earlier than depositing her physique in a lagoon in San Juan. The grotesque homicide fueled public outrage over Puerto Rico’s femicide disaster and solid a highlight on the federal government’s perceived lack of urgency to resolve it. Rising analysis and particulars round femicide on the island have galvanized activists’ calls for for swift justice and complete reforms to safeguard ladies’s lives.
From 2019 till 2023, on common, at the very least one lady every week was killed in a femicide in Puerto Rico, in response to the Observatorio de Equidad de Género de Puerto Rico, a corporation that works with open-source information on the island. The group focuses on monitoring gendered violence in Puerto Rico and issuing public coverage suggestions round gender-based violence.
[…]
One of many greatest challenges investigators in Puerto Rico face is an absence of official statistics about femicides. The Observatorio tallies the femicides and potential femicides which are beneath investigation, which differs from analysis by the federal government’s Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico, which solely counts the confirmed instances.
The Observatorio reported 41 femicides in Puerto Rico between Jan. 1 and Might 28 this yr, together with 22 which are at present beneath investigation. Of the 11 intimate associate violence instances, 10 assailants used weapons; as reported up to now, at the very least 4 of the perpetrators had legally acquired the weapons, and two had not. The federal government reported 10 femicides from Jan. 1 to Might 10 and located that 80% of femicides and transfemicides in that interval concerned a gun.
I additionally wrote about the problems in Puerto Rico in 2021.
RELATED STORY: The ‘different epidemic’ in Puerto Rico: Femicide and gendered violence
One other problem gaining consideration in Puerto Rico is financial violence.As Elián Flores García wrote for the The Information Journal:
“The Victims Are More”: Circumstances of Financial Violence Surge in Puerto Rico
Based on information from the group that shelters 100 victims, from 2022 to 2023, 10% skilled financial violence.
“Something we are monitoring is how this is increasing now, because this number is before the amendment to Law 54, which includes economic violence as a form of domestic violence. We believe that number will continue to rise as we continue to educate women, as many do not recognize this form of violence until they come here and we explain it to them,” acknowledged [Lenna] Ramírez Cintrón, who labored on this report with the participation of over 259 people from the [Casa Protegida Julia de Burgos] group.
The report revealed that 51% suffered from home violence, 94% from emotional violence, 22% confronted restrictions on freedom, 33% had been threatened, 11% skilled sexual violence, 21% had been stalked, and 10% confronted financial violence.
Ramírez Cintrón took the chance to evaluate some indicators of financial abuse. Ten of essentially the most frequent ones embrace:
- Manipulation of bills
- Fraud
- Direct threats
- Direct use of cash by the abuser
- Extreme use of bank cards
- Making funds with out the associate’s consent
- Limiting cost of payments
- Not contributing to the household earnings
- Forbidding the associate from working
- Stopping entry to financial institution accounts or limiting entry to the abuser’s accounts
In neighboring Dominican Republic, UN information was collected with the Ministry of the Inside and Police and Ministry of Ladies’s Affairs:
Two in three ladies expertise a type of violence of their lifetimes within the Dominican Republic
Based on the paperwork, two in three ladies have skilled a type of violence of their lifetimes. These outcomes had been gleaned from the primary Experimental Survey on the State of affairs of Ladies (ENESIM-2018) that the Nationwide Statistics Workplace (ONE) printed. They supply a transparent overview of the pressing must sort out this drawback and so they present data that’s important to tell resolution making processes and the development of public insurance policies for the wellbeing of ladies and women.
The research had been submitted and delivered to the Nationwide Police, and present that nearly 50 per cent of ladies report that they ceased at the very least one exercise out of worry of turning into a sufferer of atypical crime and violent crime. Though this determine has decreased for males over a ten-year interval, it has been strengthened with regard to ladies. Some 25.8 per cent of ladies observe they’ve stopped leaving the home out of worry, in comparison with 18.4 per cent of males.
Kathrin Auwarter wrote about societal norms fueling the DR’s excessive femicide fee for the Harvard Worldwide Assessment:
Machismo: The Social Paradox of Sustaining a Murderous System
The current demise of Jaraly Romero Guerrero, an 18-year-old lady from Montecristi, Dominican Republic, is not any shock to the nation, or to her relations. Her boyfriend, who served as a policeman, fatally shot her one week after he had threatened her with a weapon. A cousin of the sufferer recounts that Guerrero was warned by her relations of the hazard of being along with her associate. Sadly, this sort of information shouldn’t be unusual within the Dominican Republic. As of 2021, the Dominican Republic has the second highest femicide fee in Latin America, with 2.7 deaths per 100,000 ladies. Regardless of the rise of ladies’s empowerment and safety teams, similar to Mariposa RD and Patronato de Ayuda a Casos de Mujeres Maltratadas (PACAM), in addition to altering cultural and identification developments, the nation remains to be preventing a battle in opposition to the violent machismo perspective ingrained within the tradition and kids’s upbringings.
Machismo within the Tradition
A tradition of machismo—the place males maintain energy over ladies—is prevalent all through Latin America, and continues to bolster gender norms. Many ladies who’re raised in a machista family typically don’t have any alternative however to proceed behaving with such mindsets and ideologies. Even at this time, Dominican ladies are anticipated to handle the house and kids whereas the boys assume the function of breadwinners. Such a mindset can turn into particularly problematic when males have whole management over the family’s bills. Even when a girl in an abusive relationship wished to separate from her husband, she would possibly really feel pressured to stick with him to maintain her youngsters financially. Such was the case for Dolores, a 76-year-old Dominican lady, who lived via a verbally and bodily abusive marriage earlier in her life. Because the mom of six youngsters residing in a small barrio in Santiago de los Caballeros, she felt pressured to stick with her former husband to financially maintain the youngsters. Not solely that, however she additionally confronted social stress from her personal mom who would remind her, “ese es el hombre que ella escogió y tiene que quedarse con el” (“that’s the man she chose so she has to stay with him”).
The unlucky fact is that such beliefs are nonetheless quite common and widespread within the nation, partially as a consequence of how early they’re ingrained in ladies.
Although the “16 Days” marketing campaign has ended for this yr, gender-based violence is a year-round concern. We will help by supporting organizations which are educating, mobilizing, and preventing in opposition to it—on a number of ranges.
Be part of me within the feedback part under the place I’ll be posting hyperlinks to such organizations, and please add your personal!
