Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
While most news media, in the States and around the world, has been focused on the U.S election, recent events in Syria, the assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, and the ever more absurd and unqualified appointments of convict-elect Donald Trump, a critical campaign addressing gender-based violence and femicides around the world has come and gone with little fanfare.
UN Women has mounted a global campaign to engage governments and local activists, known as “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.”
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is an annual international civil society led campaign. It commences on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and ends on 10 December, Human Rights Day, highlighting that violence against women is the most pervasive breach of human rights worldwide. The campaign was launched by activists at the inaugural Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991, and has since mobilized individuals and organizations, including the United Nations and partners worldwide to advocate for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Our Caribbean neighbors have been fighting back against a rising tide of GBV, many utilizing “Push Forward” as a hashtag. As the United Nations’ Tonni Brodber and Simon Springett wrote for the Caribbean News Service last week:
16 Days of Activism op-ed: ‘#PushForward: Invest to End Violence Against Women and Girls’
Globally, 1 in 3 women are estimated to have experienced physical or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime, and UN Women-supported research conducted across 5 Caribbean countries found that an average of 46% of women have experienced at least 1 form of violence. Sadly, this number may even be higher due to under reporting – as many women and girls have resigned to suffer in silence.
The Caribbean region continues to witness high rates of gender-based violence (GBV) including intimate partner violence, sexual violence, including rape and sexual assault, and human trafficking. Many women and girls, also face harassment and exploitation, while simply seeking to go about their daily lives.
Violence against Women and Girls has been found to be related to higher levels of broader citizen’s insecurity and conflict.
We must urgently and collectively work to create safe spaces for women and eliminate violence from their lives.
Here’s Brodber, representative of the UN Women Multi-Country Office- Caribbean, in a “Push Forward” public service announcement.
YouTube Video
Let’s look at some of the data. Here’s a short video from UN Women:
YouTube Video
While that video focuses on global numbers, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean reports, “At Least 11 Women Are Victims of Femicide Every Day in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
In 2023, at least 3,897 women were victims of femicide or feminicide in 27 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. This means at least 11 violent deaths of women every day due to their gender, according to information that official agencies reported to the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (GEO) of the Economic Commission 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,” stated José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC, leading up to Ending Violence Against Women Day, which is commemorated every year on 25 November and begins 16 days of activism through 10 December, Human Rights Day.
[…]
In the Caribbean, at least 20 women were victims of gender-related violence resulting in death in 2023, according to information reported by nine countries and territories. Jamaica (13 feminicides), Suriname (4), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (2) and Belize (1) were the countries that reported cases in the last year.
According to ECLAC, it is important to clarify that each country records victims of feminicide, femicide, or violent deaths of women for gender-related reasons in accordance with its legal classification and provides information at different points throughout its processes of criminal or judicial investigation, and it is therefore not possible to make a strict comparison of this indicator between countries.
[…]
The ECLAC report also highlights the fact that feminicide violence affects all ages: over 75% of victims were between 15 and 59 years old, but 3% were girls under 15, and 10% were over age 60.
Note: Feminicide is a word typically used in the Caribbean and Latin America to describe gender-based violence against women, while other countries use femicide.
About ECLAC:
The Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA) -the Spanish acronym is CEPAL- was established by Economic and Social Council resolution 106(VI) of 25 February 1948 and began to function that same year. The scope of the Commission’s work was later broadened to include the countries of the Caribbean, and by resolution 1984/67 of 27 July 1984, the Economic Council decided to change its name to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC); the Spanish acronym, CEPAL, remains unchanged.
Reporting from Barbados, CBC News covered local “16 Days” events, which included remarks from Brenda Wills, the High Commissioner of Canada to Barbados.
YouTube Video
I was delighted to find this 88-minute conversation with-with scholar Taitu Heron, which was hosted by Equality Bahams on Dec. 5.
YouTube Video
From the Equality Bahamas YouTube video notes:
Femicide is the killing of a woman or girl because of her sex or gender. The term is not used in The Bahamas or the rest of the Caribbean which means the killings of women and girls are not properly counted or analyzed. We’ll be in conversation with Taitu Heron about her research on femicide in select countries in the Caribbean. We are sure to get into cases of femicide, including at least one that resulted from neglect by the State. We are looking forward to finding a way forward in research on femicide and ensuring that cases are recorded and the analysis contributes to the work to prevent femicide and gender-based violence.
Heron has also put together an informative slideshow on femicide.
Femicide Trends in the Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica (2017-2022)
In the Caribbean, femicide is an ongoing crisis, yet it is often underreported and under-analyzed due to gaps in data collection, gaps in addressing cases of domestic violence in the court systems, under-reporting to law enforcements and inconsistencies in media coverage. This paper examines the trends, patterns and legal implications of femicide in Jamaica, The Bahamas, and Barbados between 2017 and 2022. This study aims to contextualize femicide within the broader framework of GBV and provide initial and exploratory insights about what we should or could do.
The “Smile Jamaica” morning show on Television Jamaica welcomed Ruth Howard, Program Manager for WE-Talk: For the Reduction of Gender-Based Violence, to discuss the “16 Days” initiative.
YouTube Video
Moving over to Puerto Rico, in June, Mariela Santos-Muñiz wrote about the most common approach taken as femicides surge on the island.
Gun violence is playing a growing role in Puerto Rico’s femicide crisis
Legal guns are now the most common tool for carrying out femicides
In July 2023, a former boxer was convicted of killing his pregnant girlfriend in Puerto Rico—a gruesome crime that drew attention to the island’s epidemic of gender-based violence. The boxer was found responsible for kidnapping leading to death and causing the death of an unborn child. According to court documents, the boxer drugged and beat his girlfriend before depositing her body in a lagoon in San Juan. The gruesome murder fueled public outrage over Puerto Rico’s femicide crisis and cast a spotlight on the government’s perceived lack of urgency to solve it. Emerging research and details around femicide on the island have galvanized activists’ demands for swift justice and comprehensive reforms to safeguard women’s lives.
From 2019 until 2023, on average, at least one woman a week was killed in a femicide in Puerto Rico, according to the Observatorio de Equidad de Género de Puerto Rico, an organization that works with open-source data on the island. The organization focuses on monitoring gendered violence in Puerto Rico and issuing public policy recommendations around gender-based violence.
[…]
One of the biggest challenges investigators in Puerto Rico face is a lack of official statistics about femicides. The Observatorio tallies the femicides and potential femicides that are under investigation, which differs from research by the government’s Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico, which only counts the confirmed cases.
The Observatorio reported 41 femicides in Puerto Rico between Jan. 1 and May 28 this year, including 22 that are currently under investigation. Of the 11 intimate partner violence cases, 10 assailants used guns; as reported so far, at least four of the perpetrators had legally acquired the guns, and two had not. The government reported 10 femicides from Jan. 1 to May 10 and found that 80% of femicides and transfemicides in that period involved a gun.
I also wrote about the issues in Puerto Rico in 2021.
RELATED STORY: The ‘other epidemic’ in Puerto Rico: Femicide and gendered violence
Another issue gaining attention in Puerto Rico is economic violence.As Elián Flores García wrote for the The News Journal:
“The Victims Are More”: Cases of Economic Violence Surge in Puerto Rico
According to data from the organization that shelters a hundred victims, from 2022 to 2023, 10% experienced economic 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,” stated [Lenna] Ramírez Cintrón, who worked on this report with the participation of over 259 individuals from the [Casa Protegida Julia de Burgos] organization.
The report revealed that 51% suffered from domestic violence, 94% from emotional violence, 22% faced restrictions on freedom, 33% were threatened, 11% experienced sexual violence, 21% were stalked, and 10% faced economic violence.
Ramírez Cintrón took the opportunity to review some signs of economic abuse. Ten of the most frequent ones include:
Manipulation of expenses
Fraud
Direct threats
Direct use of money by the abuser
Excessive use of credit cards
Making payments without the partner’s consent
Limiting payment of bills
Not contributing to the family income
Forbidding the partner from working
Preventing access to bank accounts or restricting access to the abuser’s accounts
In neighboring Dominican Republic, UN data was collected with the Ministry of the Interior and Police and Ministry of Women’s Affairs:
Two in three women experience a form of violence in their lifetimes in the Dominican Republic
According to the documents, two in three women have experienced a form of violence in their lifetimes. These results were gleaned from the first Experimental Survey on the Situation of Women (ENESIM-2018) that the National Statistics Office (ONE) published. They provide a clear overview of the urgent need to tackle this problem and they provide information that is essential to inform decision making processes and the construction of public policies for the wellbeing of women and girls.
The studies were submitted and delivered to the National Police, and show that almost 50 per cent of women report that they ceased at least one activity out of fear of becoming a victim of ordinary crime and violent crime. Although this figure has decreased for men over a ten-year period, it has been reinforced with regard to women. Some 25.8 per cent of women note they have stopped leaving the house out of fear, compared to 18.4 per cent of men.
Kathrin Auwarter wrote about societal norms fueling the DR’s high femicide rate for the Harvard International Review:
Machismo: The Social Paradox of Sustaining a Murderous System
The recent death of Jaraly Romero Guerrero, an 18-year-old woman from Montecristi, Dominican Republic, is no surprise to the country, or to her family members. Her boyfriend, who served as a policeman, fatally shot her one week after he had threatened her with a weapon. A cousin of the victim recounts that Guerrero was warned by her family members of the danger of being with her partner. Unfortunately, this kind of news is not uncommon in the Dominican Republic. As of 2021, the Dominican Republic has the second highest femicide rate in Latin America, with 2.7 deaths per 100,000 women. Despite the rise of women’s empowerment and protection groups, such as Mariposa RD and Patronato de Ayuda a Casos de Mujeres Maltratadas (PACAM), as well as changing cultural and identity trends, the country is still fighting a battle against the violent machismo attitude ingrained in the culture and children’s upbringings.
Machismo in the Culture
A culture of machismo—where men hold power over women—is prevalent throughout Latin America, and continues to reinforce gender norms. Many women who are raised in a machista household often have no choice but to continue behaving with such mindsets and ideologies. Even today, Dominican women are expected to take care of the home and children while the men assume the role of breadwinners. Such a mindset can become especially problematic when men have total control over the household’s expenses. Even if a woman in an abusive relationship wanted to separate from her husband, she might feel forced to stay with him to sustain her children financially. Such was the case for Dolores, a 76-year-old Dominican woman, who lived through a verbally and physically abusive marriage earlier in her life. As the mother of six children living in a small barrio in Santiago de los Caballeros, she felt forced to stay with her former husband to financially sustain the children. Not only that, but she also faced social pressure from her own mother 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 unfortunate truth is that such beliefs are still very common and widespread in the country, partially due to how early they are ingrained in women.
Though the “16 Days” campaign has ended for this year, gender-based violence is a year-round concern. We can help by supporting organizations that are educating, mobilizing, and fighting against it—on multiple levels.
Join me in the comments section below where I’ll be posting links to such organizations, and please add your own!
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