_{Photo: Thea Garcia Ramirez, Chairperson of NWC}

by Charles Gladden

BELIZE CITY, Fri. Nov. 22, 2024

The National Women’s Commission (NWC) held an opening ceremony on Friday, November 22, to mark the start of “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence”, which is a yearly global activity aimed at disrupting the cycle of violence that affects women and girls.

The theme of this year’s “16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence” is “No Excuse for Violence Against Women and Girls”, and although the official start of the set of events is November 25, Belize launched the more-than-two weeks of activities a few days early in order to ensure the participation of students of the various high schools in the city.

“Technically, it starts on Monday; but we wanted to include the schools and nearby schools downtown that have participated with us. I think this is the second year they’ve done so, and it’s a lot easier on a Friday to get them out; and then we have the municipalities doing their launches on Monday. So, we do an overall national launch today, and then we follow up with the municipalities on Monday,” said Thea Garcia-Ramirez, Chairperson of the NWC.

At Friday’s event, Garcia-Ramirez drew attention to the fact that violence is embedded within the homes of many Belizeans, with young girls being taught by their mothers and elderly women to view physical violence as a natural part of relationships between men and women.

“I think all of us have heard these seemingly innocuous comments growing up like, you know, ‘if ih nuh beat me, ih nuh love me’, or ‘ih beat me but no left me’, and we kind of say it in jest and so; but it’s things that we’ve heard, and it’s sort of normalized when we’re growing up. I remember people [around] my grandma’s age group [would] say to us as little girls—and I’m talking about ages 10 and, or so—and saying if we don’t know how to cook or if we don’t learn to cook – some women have no interest in cooking; and that’s just a fact that we don’t have to have an interest in cooking – but if you don’t know how to knead, and if that tortilla did not come out round, or if that fry jack no puff, and they beat you, da cah yo look for it, because you need to know these things,” she said.

“… So, it’s ingrained; and then when it happens to you when you are an adult in a union or a marriage, well, my grandma tells me this may happen anyway, so it sort-of gets normalized. Or when you have a boyfriend and they say, ‘Well, you know, you pick your man.’ And if something wrong just, you know, that you have to go and tek yo lick, because that’s the way you ask for that; the way you look for … as if that it’s okay, and you just have to suffer and close your mouth, shut your eye and suffer through domestic violence; and it’s just a fact of life,” Garcia-Ramirez went on to say.

Garcia-Ramirez further explained that due to traditional gender roles, many women bear the brunt of the load at home after working a regular job, and she classified this phenomenon as economic violence.

“For instance, women who work a regular eight-to-five job, and have to come home and do unpaid work at home for at least five or six hours every day; and the man – if she has a husband or a partner – comes home, does a regular eight to five, but comes home tired and can watch TV and does nothing to help around the house; and that is normalized, and that is violence that is economic violence. We normalize that. So, you can see where tradition, upbringing, and the way we are socialized tie into our gender roles, and how these same gender roles play an important part in us accepting gender-based violence as a norm; and it has to stop,” she noted.

After the opening ceremonies, several high schools within Belize City marched downtown from the House of Culture on Regent Street onto Albert Street, then returned to the start point.