Call for greater social services

There is a need for greater social services to be provided for women affected by rape.

This is the view of Marsha Hinds-Layne, President of the National Organisation of Women. She believed that there is a need for deep discussions to be held nationally on the topic of rape and made a call for greater social services for women affected by rape.

“I want to use this forum this morning to make the call for greater social service supports, including medical health services for those women who are affected by rape. We still find that there are sections of the system where there are gaps in the provision of services for these individuals and after you come out of a circumstance as traumatic as rape, the slightest thing, is something that can trigger you and send you further into vulnerability,” she said.

“And I believe that we are doing a disservice when we do not recognise that sometimes quite unintentionally, we help to contribute to the trauma that individuals who suffer a rape go through when we do not ensure that our services are meeting them where they want to be met.”

She believed that the Church had the responsibility to guide this discussion on rape and change the way women and girls are viewed, adding that the Church needed to ensure that their messages created a safe understanding about women, girls, their bodies and other topics that are usually not discussed.

She went on to note that it was important for the Government of Barbados to update the statistics for Barbados in the area of intimate partner violence and sexual violence and rape, and this is something that needs to be quickly fixed.

“There is no legislative champion for the cause of women in Barbados; that needs to be fixed,” she said.

“Indeed, if we as the Women’s Movement in Barbados continues to call for women to be given a greater space in the political life of Barbados, those women thus then have a responsibility to look backward and hold the hand of another woman who needs to be handheld.”