Ministry of Women Launches Campaign to End Domestic Violence

Ministry of Women Launches Campaign to End Domestic Violence
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 9/16/2011

The Ministry of Women recently launched a campaign under the slogan, “Join in to Put an End to Violence Against Women.” This is part of the national mobilization day being planned to end violence against women as well as all domestic violence in the Dominican Republic.

At the event, Minister of Women, Alejandrina Germán, called on all sectors of society to get involved in the national mobilization. She said TV and radio spots will be publicizing the event and educational material will be handed out for those who wish to copy and distribute it.

The movement has the support of the Chinese Embassy based in the DR, the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID in Spanish), the European Fund for Development and the Dominican Ministry of Education.

At the event, Minister of Women, Alejandrina Germán, called on all sectors of society to get involved in the national mobilization. She said TV and radio spots will be publicizing the event and educational material will be handed out for those who wish to copy and distribute it.

“Through this national day of social mobilization in favor of life without violence against women and an end to domestic violence in the Dominican Republic, we seek to progressively reduce this violence by proposing prevention strategies and develop detection methods and the comprehensive treatment of violence. The idea is to provide early detection, avoid major risk factors and to help surviving women and their families break the cycle of violence and undertake new life projects,” emphasized the Minister of Women.

Likewise, she publicly called for individuals, groups and businesses who wish to become active promoters of the campaign in the areas of managing or providing space to put up educational and information material on buildings, websites, print media outlets, vehicles and other public spaces.

The launch of this social mobilization day came about with the publication of statistics collected by the Prosecutor General’s Office that confirmed that 1,153 women were murdered by their spouses or partners between 2005 and 2010. This data reveals, in detail, that up until August of this year (2011), 110 women have been the victim of murder.

These numbers confirm that violence against women and within families is one of the most frequently committed crimes in the Dominican Republic, a fact that is causing deep concern among all sectors of society because of the stark implications this fact is having on the stability and integrity of the family.

The national social mobilization day intends to integrate an educational component that will include educational workshops through the use of posters to be handed out to our teachers and professors, young people and women as well as the advertising company that will include ads in the national and local press, radio stations, TV spots, posters, stickers to be adhered to vehicles, hats, fence posts, etc. We will also see ads on the internet, emails, social networks, print and digital media outlets.

Publicity will also be posted in public and private offices and will be seen on wall spaces near government offices. Distribution of this publicity and educational information is being done by a group of workers and young volunteers.

This campaign is one of the strategies being planned and carried out by the Ministry of Women as the promoter working with other institutions and organizations jointly struggling for the prevention, detection and comprehensive treatment of violence with the goal of early detection in order to avoid major risk factors and to help surviving women and their families break the cycle of violence and begin new life projects.

Those present at the launch of this mobilization included: Mr. Isaac Tsai, Ambassador from the Republic of China (Taiwan); Sonia Vásquez, Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF); Mr. Carlos Cano, General Coordinator of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation for Development (AECID) and Dr. Domingo Jiménez, Director General of Multilateral Cooperation (DIGECOOM), all of whom took the first step in offering material and human support to kick off the campaign