Mon­day’s ob­ser­vance of In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Women is an oc­ca­sion that should nev­er go un­no­ticed in T&T. Gen­der-based vi­o­lence is a ma­jor prob­lem in this coun­try, where 44 per cent of women have ex­pe­ri­enced some form of vi­o­lence in their life­time—high­er than the glob­al av­er­age of one in three women and girls ex­pe­ri­enc­ing gen­der-based vi­o­lence. This is why it is im­por­tant to take note of the grim da­ta put out by the Unit­ed Na­tions (UN) in the count­down to the an­nu­al com­mem­o­ra­tion, in­clud­ing the fact that glob­al­ly, a woman was killed every ten min­utes in 2023.

Vi­o­lence against women and girls re­mains “large­ly un­re­port­ed due to the im­puni­ty, si­lence, stig­ma, and shame sur­round­ing it.” The UN’s call for ac­count­abil­i­ty and ac­tion from de­ci­sion-mak­ers should res­onate not on­ly in the cor­ri­dors of Par­lia­ment but in every com­mu­ni­ty and with every group in which per­pe­tra­tors con­tin­ue to be af­ford­ed the pro­tec­tion and se­cre­cy that en­ables their crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

Al­though there have been leg­isla­tive amend­ments and pro­grammes aimed at break­ing the cy­cle of gen­der-based vi­o­lence, the sta­tis­tics show that progress has been slow and there is still plen­ty of work to be done.

Da­ta from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s Crime and Analy­sis Branch shows that last year there was a 42 per cent in­crease in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports since 2021, with 1,968 record­ed cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ing girls and women.

As­sault by beat­ing, breach­es of pro­tec­tion or­ders and threat­en­ing be­hav­iour are the most preva­lent vi­o­la­tions, with 92 per cent of the women and girls who were vic­tims un­der the age of 35. Oth­er dis­tinc­tive as­pects of gen­der-based vi­o­lence in T&T in­clude the high­er in­ci­dence of phys­i­cal part­ner vi­o­lence in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of preg­nant women to those types of abuse.

But as dis­turb­ing as these facts are, they don’t give the com­plete pic­ture—ac­count­ing on­ly for the in­ci­dents that are re­port­ed. An un­known num­ber of women and girls are suf­fer­ing in si­lence. Gen­der-based vi­o­lence thrives in se­cre­cy, and many vic­tims are too bur­dened by fear and shame to seek the pro­tec­tion they so des­per­ate­ly need.

This is why the na­tion­al spot­light should be fo­cused on find­ing ways to erad­i­cate gen­der-based vi­o­lence, not on­ly on Mon­day but well be­yond the 16 days of ac­tivism that will con­tin­ue un­til De­cem­ber 10. This year’s theme, “Every 10 Min­utes, a woman is killed. #NoEx­cuse. UNiTE to End Vi­o­lence against Women” should be treat­ed as an ur­gent call to ac­tion by every law-abid­ing, re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zen of this land.

More fo­cus needs to be placed on the Na­tion­al Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan on Gen­der-based Vi­o­lence and Sex­u­al Vi­o­lence of T&T, the frame­work to in­form and guide the var­i­ous en­ti­ties in­volved in pre­vent­ing and re­spond­ing to gen­der-based vi­o­lence in all its forms.

A ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to vi­o­lence against women and girls re­quires much more than con­sis­tent en­force­ment of laws such as the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Amend­ment Act and the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Act.

Of equal im­por­tance is ad­dress­ing the gaps that im­pede the ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery of ser­vices to vic­tims of gen­der-based vi­o­lence. T&T should ful­ly sup­port and join in the UN’s call to hold per­pe­tra­tors ac­count­able while en­sur­ing rights and ac­cess to es­sen­tial ser­vices for sur­vivors.

The Na­tion­al Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan on Gen­der-based Vi­o­lence and Sex­u­al Vi­o­lence pro­vides a frame­work—it's time to get to work.