It nev­er oc­curred to me to think deeply about Car­ni­val as a cel­e­bra­tion of free­dom un­til re­cent­ly. Al­though we are all taught from a young age the cul­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal roots of the fes­ti­val, (I have dis­tinct mem­o­ries of many projects in­volv­ing scrap­books, glit­ter glue and pic­tures of tra­di­tion­al mas char­ac­ters with de­scrip­tions next to them) when you grow up in Trinidad, it’s easy to take for grant­ed this free­dom of ex­pres­sion that is ac­tu­al­ly an anom­aly in many parts of the world, es­pe­cial­ly for women and girls.

“Car­ni­val is woman” in­deed. Al­though of­fi­cial re­ports are scarce, among many of the largest, lo­cal car­ni­val bands women rep­re­sent the ma­jor­i­ty of mas­quer­aders, some­times com­pris­ing of more than 65% of mas bands, in­di­cat­ing that women are heavy­weight eco­nom­ic in­vestors in this fes­ti­val we hold so dear. The free­dom and se­cu­ri­ty of women is in­ex­tri­ca­bly tied to the fu­ture and long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val in­dus­try, which con­tin­ues to ex­pand in its eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al im­pact glob­al­ly.

So, Car­ni­val re­lies on women to thrive but what are we do­ing to en­sure women’s free­dom and safe­ty so that they can com­fort­ably par­tic­i­pate in this fes­ti­val? Women are some of the main con­sumers of car­ni­val but we’re al­so con­sumed.

To greater or less­er de­grees, many fe­male mas­quer­aders had brush­es with phys­i­cal or sex­u­al as­sault or their agency and space be­ing en­croached up­on. Car­ni­val is a time for high alert for all kinds of crimes, but for women try­ing to par­tic­i­pate in their cul­ture the stakes are es­pe­cial­ly high as they at­tempt to nav­i­gate pub­lic spaces where the threat of gen­der based vi­o­lence con­stant­ly looms.

It’s a priv­i­lege to live in a place where a woman can be as scant­i­ly clad or ful­ly cov­ered as she wish­es and pa­rade the streets or hit fetes with­out much re­sis­tance (al­though it shouldn’t be) but cul­tur­al mes­sages and every­day ex­pe­ri­ences im­ply that this free­dom is on­ly per­mis­si­ble in the nar­row pa­ra­me­ters of male en­ter­tain­ment or con­sump­tion. See oft re­peat­ed ques­tions like: “What yuh come out for?”

It is every­one’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to chal­lenge cul­tur­al norms where peo­ple feel en­ti­tled to a woman’s body, time or at­ten­tion due to her mere pres­ence in a pub­lic space or fes­ti­val. Or that an out­fit, dance or any oth­er ex­pres­sion is some­how an in­vi­ta­tion for non-con­sen­su­al touch­ing, grop­ing or full-fledged as­sault/rape.

On No­vem­ber 25th, UN Women kicked off 16 Days of Ac­tivism Against Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence. The cam­paign start­ed on In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence against Women (No­vem­ber 25th) and runs un­til De­cem­ber 10th, Hu­man Rights Day. In May 2019, UN Women Caribbean an­nounced a part­ner­ship with THE LOST TRIBE for Car­ni­val 2020, the first col­lab­o­ra­tion with a car­ni­val band in the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s his­to­ry. In ob­ser­vance of the 16 Days of Ac­tivism against Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence, some Lost Tribe com­mit­tee mem­bers were asked to share their thoughts and ex­pe­ri­ences on mov­ing through pub­lic spaces dur­ing car­ni­val and what can be said about the in­ter­ac­tions be­tween men and women in those spaces.

I asked Di­rec­tor Shari Pet­ti about her ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing on the video project:

“I was thrilled to col­lab­o­rate with THE LOST TRIBE on this project be­cause it was ex­act­ly in line with the kind of work I’ve been want­i­ng to tack­le late­ly. I was re­al­ly cu­ri­ous about not on­ly the sto­ries of the women in the video, but what the men had to say about the sit­u­a­tion be­cause that’s not a per­spec­tive we of­ten hear and most of the vi­o­lence to­wards women are done by men. The sub­jects, both male and fe­male did an ex­cel­lent job at get­ting in­to the is­sues af­fect­ing women dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son es­pe­cial­ly, and oth­er­wise, and pro­vid­ed some re­al­ly valu­able so­lu­tions on how we can move for­ward as a so­ci­ety. I re­al­ly hope with the in­clu­sion of the male per­spec­tive, men watch­ing the video re­al­ly take a step back and see how their ac­tions, whether they are aware of them or not, af­fect women, and I hope they take ac­tion to cor­rect them­selves as well.”

The video will be re­leased on In­sta­gram TV (IG @lost­tribecar­ni­val) along with oth­er con­tent to raise aware­ness about gen­der based vi­o­lence in Car­ni­val and how we can pro­tect the free­dom Trinidad and To­ba­go Car­ni­val as a con­duit for such.

Vis­it www.un­women.org for more re­sources and in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ing to the 16 Days of Ac­tivism and learn what you can do to help elim­i­nate vi­o­lence against women in your in­dus­try or com­mu­ni­ty.

Writ­ten by: Charis­sa Mod­este of the TLT Com­mit­tee