Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Re­porter

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Girls of Im­pact T&T has be­gun its out­reach for 16 Days of Ac­tivism to end Gen­der-based Vi­o­lence by tak­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al theme of dig­i­tal gen­der-based vi­o­lence di­rect­ly in­to schools. The NGO re­cent­ly co-host­ed a pan­el dis­cus­sion and spo­ken-word ses­sion with Form 3 stu­dents at San Juan South Sec­ondary, teach­ing them how cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, non-con­sen­su­al pho­to shar­ing and on­line ha­rass­ment form part of gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV).

Founder Reneé Atwell said, giv­en this year’s theme, they thought it fit­ting to vis­it a school.

“We thought with the rise of tech­nol­o­gy, and of course, with tech­nol­o­gy be­ing very promi­nent among our youth, that we will take the cam­paign in­to our schools, and that is how we de­cid­ed to vis­it the San Juan South Sec­ondary School a lit­tle ear­li­er this month to speak with the stu­dents about dig­i­tal gen­der-based vi­o­lence. So, the event at San Juan South Sec­ondary School en­com­passed a pan­el dis­cus­sion with young peo­ple from both Girls of Im­pact as well as The Wil­low Foun­da­tion, which is an­oth­er youth or­gan­i­sa­tion here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where we re­al­ly looked at what the ef­fects of GBV in on­line spaces were, what GBV in on­line spaces is, and of course, how young peo­ple can re­spond when it hap­pens,” she said.

Atwell said many stu­dents had pre­vi­ous­ly viewed these be­hav­iours as harm­less; how­ev­er, they had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­light­en them.

“The stu­dents had all been shar­ing ex­pe­ri­ences with cy­ber­bul­ly­ing and ex­pe­ri­ences where many of their peers have been vic­tims of per­sons shar­ing pho­tos on­line, per­sons be­ing tar­get­ed on­line in terms of dig­i­tal GBV. Many peo­ple were say­ing that many times they saw those be­hav­iours as mere­ly be­ing play­ful, and so we had to re­al­ly ed­u­cate them that, ‘hey, it stems from deep­er sys­temic is­sues’, and so you ought to be able to iden­ti­fy when it hap­pens, and pull your friends up on it. We al­so in­formed per­sons that in the event that some­thing like that hap­pens, there are re­course mech­a­nisms. There is a cy­ber­crime unit of the TTPS that may be able to of­fer as­sis­tance when those in­stances may hap­pen,” she added.

Atwell shared that the or­gan­i­sa­tion plans to spend the next two weeks with an on­line cam­paign as well as some in-per­son events to con­tin­ue ed­u­cat­ing and in­form­ing oth­ers about gen­der-based vi­o­lence. Weigh­ing in on the re­cent trag­ic death of UNC coun­cil­lor Romona Vic­tor, Atwell not­ed the im­por­tance of ad­vo­ca­cy all year round.

“The sad re­al­i­ty is that many of these con­ver­sa­tions on­ly hap­pen af­ter some­thing sad has hap­pened. I think as a so­ci­ety, when it comes to gen­der-based vi­o­lence, when it comes to in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence, when it comes to GBV, we need to take an all-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach.

“It can­not just be on the gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment leg­is­la­tion or poli­cies, but as friends, as neigh­bours, as teach­ers, as per­sons in so­ci­ety, we all have a du­ty. We all have an oblig­a­tion to en­sure that we keep our women and girls safe be­cause women and girls re­al­ly form a very core part of our so­ci­ety here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. So I re­al­ly hope that it will be a wake-up call for us to take an all-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach in deal­ing with the is­sue,” she said.

The 16 Days of Ac­tivism against Gen­der-based Vi­o­lence runs from No­vem­ber 25 to De­cem­ber 10.