ABUSED women carry the scars from their wounds until they die, but a largely unfeeling, insensitive public often callously and figuratively say “Get over it already”, implying her traumas are a bore, without recognising that they are adding to her relentless and enduring pain.But someone who has endured domestic abuse and moved on with her life with great fortitude and indomitable courage could relate, as no university graduate who has never experienced that particular scourge that plagues society, to someone who is still submerged in the pits of their own hell.

Effective leadership is about recognising the weaknesses and travails of citizens and transforming their lives by addressing their problems, issues and concerns, without criticising them that they are delinquent or problematic in any way, thereby adding to their degraded self-esteem and depleted emotional energies, which consequences a multiplicity of additional problems, including the deterioration of the victim’s physical health.

When the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C)’s Prime Ministerial candidate said recently to the women of Linden: “I am proud to stand before you, representing all facets of the Guyanese woman,” stressing that she can relate to what they want to achieve as women, and noting the need for recognising the imperative of women, she found instant rapport with the females in the audience because this societal scourge does not recognise boundaries or borders.

She promised that, “We will review all the laws that will encourage and promote women’s rights and equality”, and adjured: “We must exercise zero tolerance on domestic violence.”

This, she noted, is the bane of (almost) every woman, “… in that it destroys who we are, and everything we stand for; and as a community, we should take a stand against it.” She encouraged the men to participate in this fight also.

Indeed, the male protagonists need to realise that when they demolish and devastate their life partners they are inflicting punishment on themselves also, because they are demolishing, in the process of inflicting pain and degradation on their spouses, their strongest support system and that of their children. This consequently destroys family constructs and, as a natural progression, most often produces juvenile delinquents.
Legislation has been enacted to protect women, and many policies and programmes have been formulated specific to the education and empowerment of women, yet the scourge remains rooted in the socio-psychology of the nation.
It takes great courage for a woman to stand up at a public forum and admit to allowing, and maybe even enabling the abuse and degradation of herself at the hands of someone who should have protected her instead.
But if her promises fructify, then every woman in Guyana should take hope for the resurrection of family ideals and the strengthening of familial bonds – with reciprocal respect, trust and love being the bonding factors.