SPEAK UP, SPEAK OUT and stamp out violence against women.
This was the call to action from principal of the University of the West Indies Open Campus, Dr Luz Longsworth, during a ceremony at the campus in The Pine, St Michael, yesterday to mark International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women And Girls.
She said violence against women had reached pandemic proportions and should be addressed with the urgency of other global issues like HIV/AIDS, the H1N1 virus and Eola.
“It affects our communities when we do not stand up and report it to the authorities because of fear of interfering. It affects our schools, it affects our churches, it affects our economy because the person who comes into work bruised mentally or physically cannot be productive,” she said.
She noted that in Barbados, 30 per cent of women reported having been physically abused while statistics in the Caribbean region were more alarming.
After the ceremony, Longsworth led the march, which marked the start of 16 days of activism events, from the Open Campus to the Emancipation Statue in Haggatt Hall.
With banners, posters calling for an end to violence, along with a band, dozens of people took to the streets for the march organised by the Women and Development Unit of the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus.
Students of Parkinson Memorial School, Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic, representatives from the Association of Office Professionals, Barbados Workers’ Union and National Union of Public Workers also took part. (LT)