Last year the head of United Nations Development Programme’s Gender Mission in Latin America and the Caribbean Region, Eugenia Piza-Lopez, reported that, outside of conflict contexts, Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world against women. Empirical data in the region points to violence against women being a serious public health issue that many females continue to grapple with in their private spheres.

For instance, a 2012 study of 12 countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean region by Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization showed that between 41 per cent and 82 per cent of women who were abused by their partner experienced a physical injury ranging from cuts and bruises to broken bones, miscarriages, and burns. The study later showed that between 28 per cent and 64 per cent did not seek help nor speak to anyone about their experience. These typify violence against women, which an important player in the international gender architecture, the United Nations, defines as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”.

Despite the worldwide average for rape being 15 per 100,000, a recent study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Latin America and the Caribbean Region of the World Bank showed that, at the time of study, The Bahamas had an average of 133; St Vincent and the Grenadines, 112; Jamaica, 51; Dominica, 34; Barbados, 25; and Trinidad and Tobago, 18.

In terms of how we contribute to this regional problem, statistics from the Jamaica Constabulary Force show that in 2017 they dealt with 142 women becoming victims of intimate partner violence. These types of victimisations covered the areas of wounding with intent, unlawful wounding, shooting, rape, murder, assaulting female, assault occasioning bodily harm, and assault occasioning grievous bodily harm.

Similarly, data from the Jamaica Crime Observatory Integrated Crime and Violence Information System for the period of 2011-2015 for the parishes of Westmoreland, Hanover, St Mary, St Ann, Manchester, St James, Kingston, St Andrew, St Catherine, and Clarendon suggested that females in the pre-teen to teenage group were the primary victims of sexual assault. Available data from the previously mentioned source showed that, in 2015, females under 10 were disproportionately at risk of being sexually assaulted.

Thus, from these numbers it can be seen that Jamaica’s problem is a problem within a regional context. Yet, notwithstanding this, it would be grossly unfair to claim that regionally nothing is being done, as the Latin America and the Caribbean region boasts an inspirational record for making legislative reforms that promote gender justice as a human right for women. Therefore, strong political will from governments, development partners and civil society actors have played an instrumental role in lobbying and framing certain important mechanisms, such as State accountability framework and the revisions of key legislation that are crucial to stemming this problem.

For example, in Jamaica, four key legislation concerning violence against women and other vulnerable groups have been reviewed: the Sexual Offences Act, the Domestic Violence Act, the Child Care and Protection Act, and the Offences Against the Persons Act. Furthermore, between 2010-2016, the United Nations Development Programme’s regional analysis showed that Jamaica was one of the six states in the Anglophone Caribbean to have had an approved national action plan for gender violence. In 2017 the country launched the National Strategic Action Plan to eliminate Gender-Based Violence (NSAP-GBV), which provides a joint-up multisectoral approach on how gender-based violence will be tackled.

Additionally, last year the Government incorporated preventative detention as a part of the overall crime-fighting strategy in the country. This is followed by a major announcement this year by Gender Minister Olivia Grange that the Government is well on its way to provide the first State-run national shelter for victims of domestic violence, which will be located in rural Jamaica.

This is encouraging, as this year’s International Women’s Day focused on rural women — a group that faces unique challenges that is inclusive of violence against women. At the same time, the said ministry is setting up the Gender Advisory Council and is modifying the Sexual Harassment Bill to reflect local, regional and international realities.

These are just some of the institutional arrangements that have been made for violence against women at a country level, which is in keeping with our policy directive as stated by the National Policy on Gender Equality.

The fight to end violence against women cannot be seen as a ‘win-all-or-win-nothing’ type of fight. The gains should be celebrated because they show the strong political commitment of successive governments, civil society, development partners, and a vocal feminist group in the region. While we do this, there is still a need for each of us to see the eradication of violence against women as a personal responsibility. By doing so we will challenge these violence against women-friendly norms in our personal spaces, which will in turn shift the unrewarding title our region has for violence against women.

This becomes even more critical as our region has made steady achievements where the education of women and girls are concerned, yet this same group and others continue to coexist with violence that specifically targets them because they are women and girls.

Alexis Peart is vice-president of Generation 2000 (G2K).