The call to end violence against women was taken to the north of the island yesterday when the National Organization of Women hosted a motorcade and rally called NOW on the Move.
NOW president Marilyn Rice-Bowen said it was necessary to take the message to the communities, since not all people are getting it through the conventional means.
Counsellors from UN Women, United Nations Development Programme, Business and Professional Women’s Club of Barbados and the Bureau of Gender Affairs were on hand to distribute literature on domestic violence, as well as counsel people.
It was all a part of the activities to mark the 16 Days of Activitism – to end Violence against Women.
President of the Business and Professional Women’s Club Barbados, Marianne Burnham, also spoke of their work with primary and secondary schoolchildren spreading the anti-violence message. Burnham said we focus a lot on prevention, teen dating violence, and healthy relationships so they do not end up in the shelter or in adult gender-based violence relationships later, Burnham said.
Also sharing their stories were the mothers of some women who lost their lives.
They included Mercedes Gill, mother of Nicole Harrison who was killed in April 2012 and Vinette Hinds whose daughter Kimberly Hinds was killed in March this year.
Gill said she was not comfortable with what is being done to protect women, particularly since last month the man charged with her daughter’s death was granted bail after 18 months in jail.
An emotional Gill said the situation with the granting of the bail has sent her right back to April 2012.
“This society has a long way to go when it comes to domestic violence. It is a whole mental thing and we have to free our minds,” Gill said.
Meanwhile, chief executive officer of the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation, Dr Leroy McClean, also lent his voice to the call for an end to the violence.
He spoke at the first stop in Super Centre Warrens car park, where he called on men to forgive and move on.
McClean stated that some men may say they gave a woman several things during the relationship and they left for another man. He advised men in this predicament that they can get back the items but they cannot replace a life.
Therefore, he called on men to consider the scars they leave children with when they take the mother from them.
The rally went from Baobab Towers in Warrens to Speightstown, St Peter, via the West Coast, making stops at the Haynesville police outpost, Trents playing field and the Weston Community Centre, among others. It ended at Eddies car park in Speightstown with a rally. (LK)
