A short film on domestic violence and the healing process assisted by the Business and Professional Women’s Club (BPW Barbados) There is some where to go for help. Call 246-435-8222.
Thanks to the wonderful BPW women for sharing this video!
Tag Archives: Barbados
Social Exclusion in Barbados
Most people who know very little about Barbados often stereotype Bajans as passive snobs proud of coming from a country known as “Little England.” What they often fail to recognise is what that Little England legacy means for many Bajans in terms of social exclusion.
Media reports on the launch of the Country Assessment Of Living Conditions highlight the fact the individual and household poverty in Barbados has almost doubled over the last 20 years. The reason given for the increase in poverty are the barriers to access created by stigma, inter-generational poverty and lack of educational and skills qualifications despite high government spending on education. It was also reported that discrimination based on “age, sex, area of residence, religion, disability, sexuality, migrant status or HIV status”, and that the attitudes of people toward “sex workers, the disabled, Rastafari, gays, the homeless, people living with HIV/AIDS, to mention some . . . meant lack of access to several public amenities and services, and therefore limited their ability to enhance their living conditions”.
The report goes on to note that only 36% of children in Barbados live in homes with both their parents. 86% of mothers are present in the home but only 40% of fathers. The report also reinforced what has been a long-time fact in the region, that households headed by women predominate amongst poor households.
The report also mentioned incest and sexual exploitation of both boys and girls by adult men.
The effects of being poor in Barbados were noted:
the Country Assessment also indicated that the high cost of living, particularly food and utility bills, were having a negative effect on Barbadians’ living conditions and their ability to meet basic needs.
“Respondents identified some of the devastating effects that living in poor conditions and in poverty have on their health, on their relationships, on how they are treated by others in relation to social and familial exclusion, and on their self-esteem,” the study said.
“Many stressed the serious psychological and emotional damage that they experience, including stress, anxiety, depression, frustration, helplessness and powerlessness. These issues are all strongly interrelated with three main characteristics: unemployment, low-paying/part-time employment (under-employment), high levels of dependency in households, and social and familial exclusion.”
The report provides a lot of important data from which sound social policy can be made. For me it suggests that social mobility in Barbados has shifted, has become more difficult. (Something I had personally observed as well.) That Barbadian society has become more exclusionary, shutting out people who come from poor families or working class neighbourhoods, who live with disabilities or HIV, who are poor migrants, LGBT and poor or young and poor. Government spends lots of money on an education system that serves to reproduce the class system rather than challenge it. The result is that while many children from poor families do excel, many many others drop out with no qualifications and many barriers to steady work.
As Barbados works towards a National Gender Policy it has this very important research to guide the policy-making process. Addressing social exclusion in Barbados must be high on the objectives of the Gender Policy.
It’s also time CODE RED for gender justice! to conceptualize a project which addresses social exclusion.
Caribbean bloggers take on race, class, gender, nation… and Nicki Minaj
Three very popular Caribbean bloggers have written recently about gender, race, class and nation in the region. These are must-read articles, check them out:
Annie Paul writes about the Caribbean Court of Justice Case currently being heard. The case concerns the infringement of the rights (and sexual assault) of CARICOM citizen and Jamaican national, Shanique Myrie. She examines notions of gendered respectability and class and how they are at the heart of this case:
This landmark case is not only about nationality, it’s also about ‘class’, the ungainly elephant in the room no one wants to explicitly mention. It is important to portray Myrie as ‘decent’ ‘respectable’ and ‘sober’ because the image of Jamaicans in the region is overwhelmingly influenced by the higglers, DJs and hustlers who often represent the face of Jamaica, visiting, even migrating to other countries, where they are not always welcome.
Why? because these enterprising but capitally-challenged individuals (ie owning little capital, whether financial or social) often violate all the dearly held norms of ‘decency’ ‘respectability’ and ‘good taste’ with their choice of garments, raw speech and boisterous behaviour. They regularly transgress the zealously guarded borders of civility and decorum as much as the borders of nation states which under the new Chaguaramas Treaty they now have a right to breach.
Perhaps this was why Myrie was given the finger when she arrived in prim and proper Barbados, regionally glossed as ‘Little England’. Not just because she was Jamaican but because she was perceived to be a particular kind of Jamaican. So @Emilynationwide was right to emphasize the outfit and demeanour of Ms Myrie. It may be extremely germane in the instant case.
Yesterday a man lost his entire family in seconds. Seconds. We can’t return them to him. Yesterday and this morning that man is firm in the knowledge that he may never receive justice…ever. Because in this corrupt narco state of a country the cliques protect their own. In the midst of wrenching grief, this man knows that the person responsible for killing his family may never be brought to justice. The community of Sea Lots responded angrily, impulsively and violently. The police and armed services responded back.
Meanwhile, on a computer somewhere, a citizen, who happens to be a freelance journalist posts up a rant. It is both classist and racist. He sincerely believes that poor(economically) black people who protest should be shot and killed and cabbages planted on them. He is unapologetic. Within seconds, other people who have little to no clear details of the tragedy, but who also have a deep and abiding disgust for poor black people because they believe them to be a burden on society, click like on his status and add comments. Of the five people who clicked like, one is a police officer. Another one is a friend of mine; and yet another is an online persona I know who is quite comfortable with using the word Negro to describe and define Afro- descended people.
Tillah Willah took umbrage with Nicki Minaj’s description of Trinidad & Tobago as “nothing” demonstrating the extent to which this characterization relies on a homogenised understanding of blackness as outside of humanity. It is a critique worth noting especially as some feminist scholars think of Minaj as queer, subversive and transgressive.
Maybe it’s all that peroxide that’s eaten through Nicki Minaj’s scalp and started affecting her brain.
Or maybe it’s just the contempt that all Trinbagonians have for their own. You know, the place that gives you so much, that all you can manage to do is bad talk it at every opportunity.
I’m not, as you might have guessed, a fan of Ms. Minaj. There is a lot of really good hip hop out there and she is not it.
In a moment of empathy, Ms. Minaj reached out to an American Idol competitor – a refugee from Liberia – to say that she was so happy that the two of them had made it alive out of their horrible countries and come to the earthly paradise known as the United States of America to have a shot at being human.
In one fell swoop she perpetuates the myth of the savage Third World and also the streets paved with gold that exist outside of these Third World hell holes.
You really have to wonder if Ms. Minaj has some sort of post traumatic stress disorder. But if she does, if she is yet to deal with the traumas of her childhood, she should see a specialist about it, instead of going on American television and describing her country, my country as ‘nothing’.
Also I am curious about the something that she says that she is now. I suppose having millions of dollars is success. It doesn’t matter if you get this money by acting like Oversexed Barbie. It doesn’t matter if you are part of a media machine that sexualises girlhood, that preaches bamsie shaking as the sure fire way to get attention. And if you’re a black woman of any kind of popularity you start to get progressively whiter the more famous you get.
It fits the mainstream world media agenda for us to continue to think that anywhere in the so-called Third World is backward and savage. Trinidad and Liberia are one and the same, although Trinidad has not had decades of civil war. Far from being an expression of solidarity with a fellow person of colour, she is spewing the same ignorance that lumps us all into one amorphous bunch of black savages who can’t help but kill each other.
Oh and by the way? Violence and poverty do not exist in Queens. Racism is a long past dream and we’re all just getting along and having a big old party.
From local journalists, to the Caribbean court of justice to Nicki Minaj, there’s lots to unpack about our understanding of blackness as outside of the human and how this is mediated by gender, class and nation.
Join the discussion…
Edited to add
Negril Stories also wrote about the Shanique Myrie case in an aptly named post “I am Shanique Myrie or Jamaicans and Women are also Human”. Check it out.
Child Support: What would a just system look like?
I did not attend the “Paying Child Support And Can’t See The Children” forum so my comments on it are based on reports in the press.
The Nation News reports that Attorney-at-Law and Senator, Verla Depeiza, has stated that the Family Law Act is “skewed against men”. The Men’s Education and Support Association (MESA) has been saying the same thing for a long time. Similar to Men’s Rights Activists who argue then men are punished during divorce and discriminated against as fathers.
Verla Depeiza is quoted as saying
This is the thing. There is no punishment for the lady for not giving over the child even though there is a court order stating that the child is to be handed over at a particular time, but there is a punishment called prison for a man who does not pay maintenance but I feel it should be equally applied because it is a court order.
“If a woman has a court order saying that every other weekend the father should have access to the child but refuses to comply, I believe that woman should be just as open to punishment, at the highest incarceration, as a man who does not pay the maintenance.
A few responses to Verla Depeiza’s gender equality with a vengeance are required here:
Most men who do not contribute or contribute minimally are NOT, in fact, in prison. It is a myth that droves of men are locked up for failing to pay child support or that even most men court ordered to pay end up in prison when they do not. Many only end up in Magistrate’s Court when whatever informal arrangement they had between them breaks down. In many, many cases there is NO court-mandated child support arrangement. Some mothers may do it all alone, others have informal arrangements with the fathers of their children.
Most local feminist activists I have heard speak on the matter DO NOT support imprisonment for non-payment of child support. They have called for a more humane system which eliminates the hassles and embarrassment women face negotiating the court system and collecting support on behalf of their children. A 2006 UNIFEM study found that the average maintenance order is $250.00 per month or nowhere near half the cost of supporting a child. It also revealed that 50% of applications under the Maintenance Act are for arrears and are not new applications. In other words, there is massive non-compliance and the system is not working, not for mothers and not for children.
Understanding child support as a part of gender justice is way more complex than claiming the system works in women’s favour. It does not.
Not only are women dissatisfied with the system, men are too. Lloyd Springer conducted research with non-residential fathers in Barbados. Some of his informants stated that women took fathers to court for child support as an act of vengeance for some perceived wrong. A 2006 UNIFEM report on child support in Barbados states:
many men attributed motives to the court action that are not related to children’s needs and therefore there is hostility and resentment about having not only to go to court but also to pay child support. Some men felt the system was biased against them, particularly in relation to access, and/or that court actions were unnecessarily invoked when they already made contributions on request by the child’s mother. There seemed to be little appreciation of any obligation to make these payments and even less understanding of how the mother might feel in having to continually make such requests.
The point is we need a system that eliminates non-compliance, humiliation and waiting in long lines for collection of support. We also need for fathers to understand that contributing to the overall well-being of their child is their responsibility. It is not a demand that should be made of them by mothers, it should not been seen as a “tax” nor reduced to exclusively monetary terms. In fact, research shows that not only do children need their fathers, fathers need their children. Fathering is associated with many positive outcomes for men.
One area where the courts discriminate against men is often not talked about. That is the prejudice fathers face in court that is often related to their socio-economic background:
There is harsh censure of men deemed deviant fathers, usually those who are young, unemployed and with ‘rasta hairstyles’. Conversely, considerable effort is made to support and accommodate men who are not deemed hopeless ‘low lives’ and are engaged in activities that are viewed as worthy ones for men and that will improve their ‘future’. (source UNIFEM report)
Very often child support is painted as a battleground between women and men. This bypasses the role the courts play in reproducing the class system as well as reproducing gender ideologies, resulting in negative outcomes for both women and men. All of these issues are erased in favour of an ongoing theme of how women, themselves, disadvantage men.
Back to the theme of the forum: that men are denied access to their children. Where there is no history of abuse or violence and where there is no threat of violence to the mother at the point of hand over of the child, men and women should share in the parenting. Reform of the child support system toward gender justice must include this.
That said, where there has been a history of violence, women’s lives are put at risk by being forced to interact with someone who has harmed them in the past and continues to be a threat that must be taken into account in any order for visitation or shared custody. I’m not aware of any Caribbean research in the area, but research elsewhere has demonstrated that women who have been victims of violence at the hands of the father of their child, still want their children to have a relationship with the father. However, they want an arrangement which would ensure the safety of themselves and their children. A child support payment is NOT payment for seeing a child. These are two separate arrangements that must not be conflated. Justice for all parties involved must reflect this understanding.
But what of the woman, “the implacably hostile mother–caregiver who for no reason chooses to deny the father his rightful contact with his child (she’s the one who also fabricates allegations of domestic violence or abuse for strategic purposes)”? Australian researchers have found that woman to be a “mythical creature”.* What would empirical research in Barbados reveal? How many women would have to go to prison (according to Verla Depeiza’s suggestion) for failing to allow fathers to see their children? Is this really a widespread problem? Or is the issue far more complex than vengeful mothers and dutiful child-support-paying fathers victimized by women and by the courts? When it comes to family law can we honestly say that the Magistrate’s court is a woman’s world? What would a just system look like, one that delivers fair outcomes for girls and boys, women and men?
* Source: Graycar, Reg, Law Reform by Frozen Chook: Family Law Reform for the New Millennium? (2000). Melbourne University Law Review, Vol. 24, pp. 737-755, 2000; Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 08/72. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1170522
Can One Billion Rising End Violence Against Women?
Many Caribbean countries participated in the global One Billion Rising campaign. You can view photos from the events across the region and even add yours to the pool.
Barbados held two events: One at the Cave Hill campus on the University of the West Indies which focused on sexual violence since three Caribbean countries are in the top 10 globally for rates of reported rape. The other took place in the capital and featured collaboration among many women’s organisations, artists and UN WOMEN. The Bridgetown gained significant publicity in the mainstream media, particularly radio and press. The following letter to the editor details the UWI event which was hosted by the Institute for Gender & Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit.
Barbados might be interested to know that the UWI Cave Hill Campus also held a significant One Billion Rising event that mainly targeted students, but also involved staff in the audience and as performers.
I write this letter and hope it is published because of what emerged. Female students at the campus routinely face harassment, sometimes physical, on ZR vehicles. Some also continue to face the problem of voyeurism (peeping toms) in some private residences around campus. Obviously this is unacceptable.
The Cave Hill campus administration does what it can from what I can see, including establishing protocols and addressing safety issues. In fact, the event was hosted by the university’s Institute for Gender and Development Studies – Nita Barrow Unit as a means of gathering just such data.
Students testified, a Guild of students spokesman informed that the Guild’s position was zero tolerance on campus and off, one male students spoke touchingly of the solidarity he feels his colleagues should express to prevent not only physical but also emotional abuse of young women.
Staff members and students performed poetry and sang songs relevant to the theme of rejection of violence in all its forms, and the need for the embrace of more loving, respectful and self-respecting behaviours by men and women singly and collectively. One staff member spoke of the fact young men are themselves victims of sexual violence by other men, and this underscores the evident necessity for men to strongly support the eradication of this scourge.
Violence against women is a feature of vulnerability, especially when men congregate in even temporary gangs.
It is good to see the solidarity your paper offers in highlighting these issues. I certainly ask our community of ZR drivers, conductors, owners and the owners of private residences around the campus to join you in that solidarity and put measures in place to secure the young women using their services. It is just the right thing to do.
– Margaret D. Gill
Source: This article originally appeared in the Barbados as a letter to the editor.
Guyana also hosted a significant One Billion Rising event in which many women’s organisations participated. There were events in St. Lucia, Grenada and Antigua as well.
A recent comment on the CODE RED blog called into question the political strategies of the One Billion Rising Campaign:
I wish every Feminist initiative, everywhere around the globe, wholehearted success.
But… I have a seeeerious problem with the “Let’s All Dance!” focus for the “One Billion Rising” event. Could someone tell me WHY – and in a way that makes pellucid sense to me, WHY Women, in their seemingly chronic male-designation as Abuse Fodder, would choose the carefree, spontaneous, *celebratory* act of …dance: to (somehow?!?) symbolize the One Billion Rising initiative?
The whole things seems miscued, somehow; it appears – at least to me, like some desperate psychological “buffer” being enacted by Women globally, to try to distance themselves emotionally from what I have NO FEAR in stating as The Harsh REALITY: i.e., WOMEN’S RIGHTS IS ON A STEADILY DOWNWARD CURVE!
Consequently, to “Dance While Women’s Lives are BURNING TO HELL…smacks oddly of a SIMILAR Roman initiative. Only I think the Ancient used FIDDLES to distract themselves whilst their Home-Space INCINERATED!!!
So – as they say in Showbiz: “Break a Leg!”
This Huffing Post article took One Billion Rising to task for a lack of feminist consciousness, a refusal to name the causes of violence against women in favour of feel-good dancing in which everyone could participate and a false notion of sisterhood which perpetuates racist hierarchies.
What do you think? Is One Billion Rising a celebrity-driven, white-feminist-saving-the-Third-World-woman danceathon/mediafest that lacks political edge? Or were local organisers able to “creolise” the One Billion Rising to make it meaningful for their communities as part of wider and ongoing efforts to address violence against women?
