…Beverly Braithwaite-Chan urges robust stance

By Lisa Hamilton

IT’S not like Beverly Braithwaite-Chan to give up that easily, but she’s clearly at the end of her tether.

Guyanese are still too accepting of domestic abuse, she says. And she should know, because in her line of work, she gets to see first-hand the negative impact domestic violence can have, particularly when its perpetrated against women and girls.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Davis Memorial Hospital, Ms Braithwaite-Chan firmly believes that this ‘16 Days of Activism’ thing is not working out; that a different angle needs to be taken on the matter.

“Every year we pay attention to this elimination of violence against women,” she said, “and the irony is, it’s getting worse; the conversation has become so mundane that you keep on hearing the same thing every time… And they hear that every day until they stop hearing it.”

Clearly at her wits end to come up with a workable solution, Braithwaite-Chan, who is also a certified counsellor, said:
“It’s not about the laws that are there; it’s all about changing the conversation.”

This change of conversation of which she speaks has to do with tackling the issue of domestic violence against women and girls head-on; taking it by its roots, if necessary.

By that she means educating the child from the home; teaching amicable relations between spouses and couples, and confronting issues of anger management among other key strategies.

Speaking of anger management, she said: “There are some families where that’s all they know: Violence. To resolve a problem, it’s always in a violent way, either in tones or physical abuse; that’s all they learnt.
“We have to intensify our programme in terms of anger management and being able to live with differences.”

EXERCISING PRUDENCE
Surprisingly, Commander of ‘A’ Division, Marlon Chapman has a slightly different strategy in mind, in that he’s all for exercising prudence in trying to resolve disputes.

Though he was at pains to underscore that the Police Force has zero tolerance where domestic violence is concerned, Commander Chapman said:

“There are a lot of factors that cause these things to happen, but I believe that if there’s a problem between two parties, they should be able to reason it out instead of allowing violence to get in.

“And if the two parties cannot sort it out by themselves, then experts at the Ministry of Social Protection should get involved and try to get the situation under control. Because a child seeing his father beating his mother in the house sends the wrong message, the effects of which might not be seen now, but later down.”

Recently, the Davis Memorial Hospital conducted a two-day workshop, which saw staff being trained to identify victims of domestic abuse among those seeking medical attention for one reason or the other.

“Domestic violence has gone so out of control, that it needs now to be sieged by every agency: The hospitals, the clubs, the churches, the schools, the community as a whole. Everyone! We have to besiege this problem before it is addressed,” Ms Braithwaite-Chan said.

She, however, was the first to admit that this will be no easy task. It’s a fact that the Women and Gender Equality Commission is well aware of.

“We still have a hard and rocky road ahead to change those norms in our society that accept violence against women, children and all forms of gender-based violence. Attitudes, practices, beliefs are difficult to change; but change is also inevitable,” the Commission has said in a statement.

Braithwaite-Chan couldn’t agree more. She somehow feels it in her bones that there are many persons out there in unhappy and abusive relationships battling with the difficult decision to leave.

She says that when counselling such persons, she is very meticulous.

“What I do is ask them: ‘What do you want from this relationship? Where is it taking you? How is it benefiting you?’
“I stimulate their thinking about it, and, given the responses, then I help them towards making a decision, based on what they want.

“People need access to information…We talk about empowering people, but you can’t empower anybody.
“What you can do is provide mechanisms for them to be empowered, and the greatest of these is information. Because if people know better, they are likely to do better.”

The goal of the 16-day campaign is to continue to build awareness of, and advocate for, an end to all forms of gender-based violence against women and girls.