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Contact:
Primus Hutchinson
Wednesday, November 24, 2004 - The increase in cases of physical and
sexual abuse of women reported to the Women Support Centre is becoming a serious
cause for concern, particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS infection. The Women
Support Centre is an institution for battered women under the supervision of the
Ministry of Health, Human Services, Family Affairs and Gender Relations.
According to Marcia Synthorien of the Division of Gender Relations in the
Ministry of Health, for the three years the centre has been in operation, this
year has shown a significant increase of sexual abuse cases.
Speaking on GIS’ Issues and Answers programme on the topic HIV/AIDS and Domestic
Violence, Ms. Synthorien said that approximately 67% of their clients complained
of being both physically and sexually abused: “It sort of allows us to
understand better, this issue, because they don’t feel that they are able to
negotiate with those persons, safe sex practices - put on a Condom, I don’t want
to have sex with you if you are not going to protect me and so on. So, most
tines it’s forced sex. They are physically abused and then sexually abused. We
are now having a new concern at the shelter, which is really beginning to raise
the question of infections and HIV.
Director of the National HIV/AIDS Programme in the Ministry of Health, Nahum Jn.
Baptiste said that what needed to be done now was to help particularly, the less
privileged women in the society to overcome their vulnerability: “I mean do they
have a job, are they able to support themselves economically. What about the
level of education? Now it’s true, we have been talking about these things for
quite a long time, now we need to focus on it a lot more and look at its role,
empowering women more. We need to work more with the groups, like the Uptown
Girls Centre. I think that our programmes are not necessarily meeting the women,
particularly the rural women down on the ground, and we definitely need to work
a lot more with these groups, to enable them to empower women.
However, Mr. Jn. Baptiste said this called for a need to have more HIV/AIDS
specialists here, to help address HIV/AIDS and Domestic Violence.
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