Jan­nelle Bernard

Se­nior Re­porter

jan­nelle.bernard@cnc3.co.tt

The per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Unit says the num­ber of teenage girls fac­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is in­creas­ing in this coun­try. 

Speak­ing dur­ing a Na­tion­al Youth Ral­ly at Queen’s Hall yes­ter­day as 16 days of ac­tivism kicked off with the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Women, Vi­jay Gan­gaper­sad said the num­ber of women re­port­ing be­ing abused had been ris­ing. He said teenage girls had al­so been re­port­ing this type of abuse. 

“The da­ta is sug­gest­ing that this is a youth­ful phe­nom­e­non, with the vast ma­jor­i­ty of vic­tims rang­ing be­tween the ages of 15 to 34. We must un­der­stand what the da­ta is say­ing to us as Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. This is un­ac­cept­able, this is in­tol­er­a­ble, and this must change.”

He em­pha­sised the need for men to make their voic­es heard in the fight against gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

“Men have a crit­i­cal role to play to end gen­der-based vi­o­lence and to am­pli­fy the voic­es of women and those or­gan­i­sa­tions that are al­ready in the field try­ing to do this enor­mous task,” he said.

He added that young peo­ple had the pow­er to in­flu­ence pos­i­tive be­hav­iour­al changes.

“It is time for you to take a stand and raise aware­ness about the im­pact of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and all forms of gen­der-based vi­o­lence on your peers and your com­mu­ni­ties, he said.

Gan­gaper­sad said that of­fer­ing women sup­port af­ter they have been abused is not enough.

“We can­not con­tin­ue to come day af­ter day, month af­ter month, year af­ter year, and of­fer women and girls ser­vices for the abom­inable acts of vi­o­lence that they en­dure. This on­ly has a place in a so­ci­ety that has come to ac­cept vi­o­lence against women and girls as a fea­ture of our land­scape,” he said.

“We must not and should not ac­cept this as our re­al­i­ty. We must in­vest in ed­u­ca­tion that em­pow­ers, pro­mote ini­tia­tives that ad­dress the root caus­es of vi­o­lence, and en­gage in col­lec­tive ac­tion that is fo­cused on pre­ven­tion and ac­tions to pro­tect and el­e­vate our women and girls.”