CARICOM commemorates 16 days of activism against GBV

Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, Dr. Car­la Bar­nett, on Tues­day said that the re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion group­ing stands in “sol­i­dar­i­ty” with the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty in com­mem­o­rat­ing the 16 Days of Ac­tivism against Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence.

In a mes­sage, she said that dur­ing the No­vem­ber 25 to De­cem­ber 10 pe­ri­od, four im­por­tant days will be ob­served, name­ly the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence against Women on No­vem­ber 25,  Hu­man Rights De­fend­ers’ Day on No­vem­ber 29, World AIDS Day on De­cem­ber 1 and Hu­man Rights Day on De­cem­ber 10.

She said that the cam­paign un­der­scores that vi­o­lence de­nies women and girls the en­joy­ment of the full com­ple­ment of their hu­man rights. “CARI­COM joins this glob­al call to ac­tion against harm­ful gen­der norms, im­puni­ty, si­lence and stig­ma, all of which have al­lowed vi­o­lence against women and girls to be­come nor­malised in far too many com­mu­ni­ties."

Bar­nett said that this year’s theme, “UNiTE to End Dig­i­tal Vi­o­lence against  All Women and Girls,” ad­dress­es the alarm­ing rise of dig­i­tal vi­o­lence against women and girls, fu­eled by ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, on­line anonymi­ty, and weak le­gal ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“De­spite the in­ter­net’s po­ten­tial for em­pow­er­ment, women and girls now face in­creased threats, in­clud­ing cy­ber ha­rass­ment, deep­fake at­tacks, and re­lent­less on­line abuse. UN Women re­ports that 1.8 bil­lion women and girls lack le­gal pro­tec­tion from tech­nol­o­gy-fa­cil­i­tat­ed abuse, with less than 40 per cent of coun­tries hav­ing rel­e­vant laws.

“The es­ca­la­tion of AI-dri­ven abuse has made it faster, more tar­get­ed and hard­er to de­tect, with deep­fake pornog­ra­phy dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ing women.”

Bar­nett said that the rise of the “manos­phere”, a net­work of on­line com­mu­ni­ties pro­mot­ing tox­ic mas­culin­i­ty and misog­y­ny, adds to the grow­ing threat to gen­der equal­i­ty, say­ing it neg­a­tive­ly af­fects the men­tal and phys­i­cal well­be­ing of both women and men, and de­ters women from par­tic­i­pat­ing in dig­i­tal spaces.

“With bil­lions of peo­ple on­line, dig­i­tal plat­forms are in­creas­ing­ly be­ing used to spread hate, harm­ful stereo­types, re­in­force sex­ist ide­olo­gies and por­tray fem­i­nism neg­a­tive­ly among young men and boys.

“So­cial me­dia is be­ing used to am­pli­fy these di­vi­sive mes­sages, caus­ing re­al-world im­pacts on at­ti­tudes and be­hav­iours, af­fect­ing ca­reers, shap­ing cul­ture, caus­ing fear and con­tribut­ing to ex­treme acts of vi­o­lence.”

The CARI­COM Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al said that there is an ur­gent need to de­vise ef­fec­tive ap­proach­es to coun­ter­act tox­ic on­line en­vi­ron­ments.

She said mul­ti­fac­eted ef­forts must in­clude re­search, pol­i­cy ad­vo­ca­cy, sup­port for sur­vivors, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion about gen­der equal­i­ty and healthy re­la­tion­ships, youth-fo­cused pro­grammes, dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy and cul­tur­al change.

“Em­pha­sis should con­tin­ue to be placed on leg­isla­tive re­form; hir­ing of more women in the dig­i­tal space; swift re­moval of harm­ful con­tent; and de­cel­er­a­tion of the spread of misog­y­nis­tic ideas.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Unit­ed Na­tions, one in three women world­wide has ex­pe­ri­enced phys­i­cal or sex­u­al vi­o­lence dur­ing their life­time, most of­ten at the hands of an in­ti­mate part­ner. Bar­nett said preva­lence sur­veys con­duct­ed be­tween 2017-2019 in five CARI­COM mem­ber states, sam­pling women and girls 15-64 years old, in­di­cate in­ci­dence rates as high as one in two women.

She said the so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences are con­cern­ing, with po­ten­tial costs in health­care, le­gal ser­vices and lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. This un­der­scores the need for a com­pre­hen­sive re­sponse in our coun­tries.

”CARI­COM mem­ber states have been im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to ad­dress vi­o­lence against women and girls by pro­mot­ing gen­der equal­i­ty, strength­en­ing le­gal frame­works and en­hanc­ing sup­port sys­tems for sur­vivors.

“The CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at re­mains com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing mem­ber states in de­vel­op­ing and im­ple­ment­ing po­lices to pre­vent and re­spond to vi­o­lence against women and girls, in­clud­ing through fa­cil­i­tat­ing train­ing of front­line pro­fes­sion­als, in­clud­ing po­lice, health­care work­ers and so­cial ser­vice providers, to bet­ter re­spond to cas­es of gen­der-based vi­o­lence.”

Bar­nett said the re­gion is to­day ho­n­our­ing the courage of sur­vivors, am­pli­fy their voic­es, and com­mit to re­main unit­ed in the pur­suit of jus­tice and equal­i­ty.

“The erad­i­ca­tion of vi­o­lence against women is not on­ly a moral and vi­tal hu­man rights im­per­a­tive, but a pre­req­ui­site for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and pros­per­i­ty.

“In a re­gion of some 16 mil­lion peo­ple, more than half of whom are women and girls, we are in­di­vid­u­al­ly and col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble for cre­at­ing safe, in­clu­sive, and eq­ui­table so­ci­eties, where every woman and girl can live free from fear and vi­o­lence,” she added.

CMC/gt/ir/2025

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Nov 25, CMC –