Stubborn Bias

LONGSTANDING UNFAIRNESS AGAINST FEMALE GUYANESE IS BLAMED FOR
PERSISTENT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS, according to a tripartite
internationally-backed study.
The qualitative research was done under the auspices of two United Nations agencies: the UN
Development Programme (UNDP) the UN Women, and the United States Agency for International
Development (UNAID) on the issue here.
Experts say social determinants such as lower educational levels, lower income levels, history of
witnessing parental violence, forced marriage and living in a single parent home, put women at higher
risk of spousal violence.
According to the findings of the USAID and UN agencies-support 160-page document, while
Guyanese public policies related to violence are robust, the implementers are only partially aware of
their legal responsibilities.
It said, “traditional gender norms continue to define the discourse on masculine and feminine roles in
(the Guyanese) society, and therefore heavily contradict progressive violence-related policies”
pursued by the government.
While violence against women and girls (VAWG) occurs “across ethnic lines” highly educated
females are themselves not exempted from spousal beatings and other forms of violence.
This study blamed this on a number of factors including “intergenerational violence and alcohol/ drug
misuse,” the research concluded.
It said 178 persons from 6 of the 10 Administrative Regions participated in the UN and USAID-
backed study. Some 68 percent of the participants identified as female and 29.8 percent as male. Their
ages ranged from 18 to 65, with the majority – 36 percent – in the 25–34-year age group.
In the survey, Afro-Guyanese comprised 37.6 percent of the participants, while Indo-Guyanese
represented 31.5 percent, the report noted. It said 5.1 percent of those who took part identified
themselves as indigenous Guyanese.

Additionally, “many participants identified as ‘mixed’ (23.6 percent), which is any combination of
these primary ethnic groups or a combination of European descendants (Portuguese, British, French,
Dutch, etc.) with Afro, Indo or indigenous populations,” it explained.
The bulk of the respondents were either single (31.5 percent), or married or in a domestic partnership
(29.8 percent).
“The majority (72 percent) had at least one child.”
Educationally, most were high school graduates (29.8 percent); some of them, 7.3 percent, possessing
some form of college credits; 6.2 percent had either a trade/technical/vocational training, or a
university degree (14.6 percent).
The persistence of aggression directed at lovers and their scions has been traced to the country’s
colonial past and is a legacy which was “steeped in exceptional violence”. The oxen stubbornness of
the practice has persisted “even though Guyana’s governing bodies have acknowledged and
participated in global initiatives to end violence against women since 1975,” the document explained.
The report highlights “the complexity of women’s experiences in their own words, capturing factors
that contribute to the impact of violence on women in various ways. In this study, survivor and
community perspectives on VAWG are related to three major areas: human rights and citizen security,
the social determinants of health and prevention and programme development,” it said.
The objectives of this study included documenting women’s experiences of violence in their
relationships through an intersectional lens; understanding community-level perspectives on VAWG
that create protective or risk factors for women, including men’s roles and reviewing current structural
responses to violence against women and girls.
It also probed ways to mitigate female-directed violence and document methodological successes,
challenges and barriers to completing research on the phenomenon in Guyana.
“The overall aim…was to contribute contextual information to the WHLES (women’s health and life
experiences survey) to explain the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of Guyanese women’s experiences of violence in
their relationships.”
This qualitative component captured the perspectives of survivors and community members on
this issue,” the document said.