By Sue-Ann Wayow
IN the fight against domestic violence against women and girls, Trinidad and Tobago received $36 million in funding from the European Union (EU).
On Wednesday, Ambassador of the European Union (EU) Delegation to Trinidad and Tobago Peter Cavendish spoke about the investment into the United Nations Spotlight Initiative which began in 2017, the largest funded global initiative to address violence against women and girls.
The Spotlight Initiative, to eliminate violence against women and girls supported with EU funding, marked International Women’s Day with the launch of The National Clinical and Policy Guidelines on Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence: Trinidad and Tobago.
Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh, Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) representative Dr Erica Wheeler and Tobago’s Secretary of Health, Wellness and Social Protection in the Tobago Dr Faith B.Yisrael also spoke.
Cavendish said with the launch of the guidelines “a light has been cast into the shadows.”
The global donation of the EU to the Spotlight Initiative is 500 million Euros, including 4.5 million to the Trinidad and Tobago programme equivalent to TT$36 million.
Cavendish said the EU had confidence in the programmes being rolled out in Trinidad and Tobago and the region.
The launch of the guidelines on Wednesday featured the ceremonial handover of 100 copies of the Guidelines and IT equipment to support data collection on the healthcare sector’s response to intimate partner violence and sexual violence.
Commending Trinidad and Tobago on its historic achievement, Cavendish pledged the support of the EU to this issue beyond the end of the Spotlight programme in December 2023.
Trinidad and Tobago is now the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to develop an electronic health information system on violence against women.
PAHO/ WHO plans to use the Trinidad and Tobago experience as a benchmark for technical cooperation to develop similar information systems on violence against women in other countries of the Americas, a release from the United Nations further stated.
See related story below:
