Halimah DeShong | Be a voice for change in your community

Since the early 1990s, activist communities across the Caribbean have joined our counterparts in the rest of the world to promote heightened awareness of the problem of sexual and gendered harms, during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence.

Annually, the period from November 25 to December 10 invites reflections on progress made and enduring barriers to preventing and ending sexual and gendered violence disproportionately affecting women, girls and persons with diverse genders and sexualities.

This year, we at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, at The University of the West Indies, join our regional and global communities of activists and advocates in raising awareness of emerging ways in which these violences proliferate.

Two such concerns occupy our focus this year.

1. Reflected in the 2025 United Nations' theme, “UNiTe to End Digital Violence against Women and Girls”, is a call for us to more meaningfully confront the rapid rate at which information and communications technologies (ICTs) are weaponised to commit acts of sexual and gendered violence.

In other words, we encourage an increased focus on technology-facilitated sexual and gender-based violence. There is also need to acknowledge how communities of activists, psychosocial professionals and educators, mobilise ICTs and other digital technologies to denounce violence, and to promote gender equity and justice.

2. Consistently embedding gender and social inclusion perspectives in disaster preparedness, mitigation and recovery effects must be prioritised; especially in the wake of the devastating effects of Hurricane Melissa in Haiti, Jamaica and Cuba.

Sometimes cited as 'technology facilitated', 'image-based', 'digital' and/or 'online' sexual and gender-based violence, these harms refer to acts of violence committed, assisted, aggravated, or amplified through the use of ICTs and digital media, against someone, based on their gender and/or sexuality. Women, girls, persons with diverse genders and sexualities, and children are far more likely to be targets.

IDENTIFIABLE PATTERNS

Naming the context in which digital violence occurs is changing as rapidly as innovations in ICTs and digital media appear.

These changes notwithstanding, identifiable patterns emerge and include:

- The perpetration of cyberstalking or unwanted, persistent and threatening contact, and surveillance through the use of technology. This is often linked to forms of stalking which occur offline;

- Posting of sensitive, personal material without a person's permission;

- Image-based violence involving the use of sexual imagery, without a person's consent, in ways that can humiliate, exploit and/or objectify an individual;

- The manipulation of images using editing software, such as attaching someone' face to another's body;

- Online impersonation; and

- Online attacks in the form of sexual harassment and bullying through the use of digital technologies and digital media.

Even as ICTs are used in ways to commit these egregious harms, we also recognise how activists use digital technologies, including digital media, to call attention to, and to strategise to end sexual and gendered violence. In this regard, we commend groups like 'Intersect Antigua', as well as the creation of online educational tools by the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, at The UWI, as part of how we might leverage ICTs and other digital technologies to address sexual and gendered violence in our Caribbean.

Additionally, a draft model law on technology-facilitated sexual and gender-based violence now exists as part of work under the Belém do Pará Convention, to which several Caribbean governments are signatories.

NEED FOR AMPLIFIED FOCUS

Turning attention to the second of our 2025, 16 Days of Activism priority actions, we reiterate the need for amplified focus on preventing and addressing the increased levels of sexual and gendered violence, against women and girls that emerge in the wake of crises.

It is for this reason that we urge state, civil society, community, private sector and development agency partners, supporting relief efforts across the Caribbean, to ensure gender and social inclusion perspectives are embedded in disaster mitigation and recovery efforts.

There are far too many lessons on how existing inequalities are heightened in times of crisis. Inconsistent engagement with these vantage points in the language, design and actions associated with relief and rebuilding, often means that we miss how, for example:

- Women and children are far more likely to be displaced;

- The intensification of unpaid work and care activities (including in shelters) which predominantly fall to women and girls;

- The immediate injury and mortality rates, associated with hurricanes and other hazards, tend to be higher for men, who are more likely to be engaged in labour-intensive preparatory and recovery work, and who are more likely to take riskier actions during a storm, explosive eruption or other hazards;

- Women are far more likely to be affected by decreased access to contraception and other sexual and reproductive health resources;

- Increased rates of unwanted pregnancies for women and girls in post disaster situations;

- Existing challenges in the built-environment are made worse for persons with physical disabilities in a disaster context;

- Increased likelihood of women's and girls' exposure to sexual and gendered violence;

- Inadequate representation of women, persons with disabilities and representatives from rural communities on national response effort leadership teams; and

- The need for more resources to be directed to support civil society organisations, including women-led and disabilities-focused entities, on the frontlines of recovery action.

This year, we invite you to be part of the change required for shifting the attitudes, practices, and systems of gender inequality, which produce, and sustain violence against women and girls. Join our efforts to name, confront and reject the various ways in which sexual and gendered harms endure.

Encourage decision-makers in your countries and communities to prioritise a focus on gender and social inclusion in comprehensive disaster management, disaster resilience planning; and the promotion of just uses of technology.

Make a difference in your circles of influence by using and sharing the educational material highlighted here, and by being a voice for change in your community.