Social activist Jeanie Ollivierre is pleading with the public to take action to end violence against women, saying this is “everyone’s business”.
This call to be vigilant and help victims was lamented by Ollivierre at a recent National Council of Women’s (NCW) leadership workshop.
Ollivierre, who was one of the facilitators at the seminar, chided the public of turning a blind eye, and said more needs to be done to address the issue of violence against women.
The head of the social services agency, Marion House, explained that too often people who intervene on the behalf of victims are castigated as being nosey and “looking for commess (gossip)”.
She, however, pointed out that under the Belem Do Para Convention, which was officially established in 1995 and which this country signed unto in 1996, members of the public have the responsibility to speak and act on behalf of victims.
Ollivierre pointed out that the convention affords citizens the right to take legal procedures on behalf of victims as far as the international level and called on persons to exercise their civil liberties.
Meanwhile, trade unionist and educator Joy Mathews, who was another facilitator at the event, spoke on the topic “Empowering Women for Leadership”.
Matthews pointed out various leadership styles and called on women to know their strengths and weaknesses in their approach to management. She said this could determine their effectiveness in higher government and business sectors.
In her remarks as President of the NCW, Beverly Richards emphasized that while it is important to focus on empowering women, it is also necessary to include males in the education process since many of them were the perpetrators of violence against females.
She said persons in the society “must seize the opportunity to be a voice to call out evil, condemn corruption and end exploitation” particularly against young girls and women whose issues and voices could become stifled because of their inability to express themselves.
I wholly support Ms. Jeanie Olliviere in her clarion call for an immediate and permanent END TO ALL VIOLENCE OR FORMS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST OUR FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD.
It is more than high time that we all practise POLICING OURSELVES. We sorely need real spiritual help in taming and overcoming the selfish VIOLENT human being with which we were all born, and which our upbringing, nurture, sociliazation, and formal-informal teaching have resulted in.
Furthermore, when sentence against evil deeds are not swiftly and expeditiously executed, THEN THE HEARTS OF THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN AND WOMEN ARE FULLY SET [setted?] IN THEM TO DO [FURTHER] EVIL AND WICKEDNESS.
Let us all, as a VINCENTIAN-GRENADIAN-WEST INDIAN PEOPLE or NATION, learn the peace of mind of true, genuine spirituality, SOCIO-EMOTIONAL MATURITY, and fully-fledged SOCIAL, ETHICAL, AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY.
I humbly suggest a first-ever resolve AND ATTEMPT to embed the DECALOGUE in our personal, family, and communal lives? Yes, the same TEN COMMANDMENTS THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN TRIED IN ANY EARNESTY BY WEST INDIANS, despite being spurned, rejected and sidelined by all segments of society, including the religious folk and professional theologians. WHAT IS THE HARM in trying it FOR ONCE??? Can you really tell us what is WRONG with it, er… them?
WELL, JUST A NEO-SOCIOLOGIST AND SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT:
Give THE ALMIGHTY CREATOR’s great spiritual LAW of life and living A CHANCE, for once. NO SOCIETY HAS EVER TRIED IT, in toto.
Imagine … NO THIEVING [no politicians?], or LYING [no politicians?], NO MURDERS [all too many in our mini nation], NO RAPING [?] ….
OUR PERFECT “natural” kingdom that mi Rastafarian brethren preach so, so voluble about..
Give me a break! The most and worst violence in SVG is violence against men. But the feminists always ignore this fact suggesting that they care little about the murders, woundings, and beatings that men receive from other men on an almost daily basis.