“Families hold societies together, and intergenerational relationships extend this legacy over time” – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
If families hold societies together, then what happens to societies when families disintegrate? And if the family is in crisis, then it surely translates to the society being in grave danger as well. The signs that the situation has reached a critical level are all around us.
A young woman, Abickie Ferguson, is currently before the court being tried for the murder of her stepfather, Glendon Scipio, who was stabbed to death at Plaisance, East Coast Demerara in 2009; she was 17-years old at the time.
Just recently, in another court, 63-year-old Fitz Randolph Josiah appeared before a magistrate and was not required to plead to the charge that he murdered his stepdaughter, 14-year-old Fenella Samuels, who was stabbed multiple times last month at Plastic City, Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara.
On Tuesday, at least two other dailies reported that a man had been charged with raping his granddaughter (identifying the man and ultimately the child, in contravention of the rules of the court).
Last weekend, Maryann Sunita Nauth, a 30-year-old mother of three was stabbed and left to die in a hotel room in the city. She had gone to meet her ex-husband and father of her children, who has since disappeared. Ms Nauth’s murder represented another statistic in continuing assault on women, who are rhapsodised by songwriters and poets as the glue that holds the family together.
Apart from the above, the number of women—many still in their productive years—killed by spouses in the past few years has reached crisis level. With mother dead and father either dead or imprisoned as a consequence, children are left to be brought up by grandparents, spawning skipped-generation families that apart from the tragedy surrounding them, have their own issues. For while extended families abound, difficulties arise when grandparents are forced to solely bring up children because of these circumstances. Notwithstanding the generational issues, these would be children who are scarred from constant abuse and often also, from watching the death of one parent at the hands of another.
Meanwhile, International Day of Families, first proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 to reflect the importance the international community attaches to families, was observed yesterday. It was mostly unnoticed by the agencies that deal with families.
The UN commemorated the day under the theme, ‘Advancing social integration and intergenerational solidarity’ and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his message noted that current economic trends were forcing young people to postpone their independence as well as placing a strain on dual-earner families in terms of being able to afford quality childcare. Meanwhile, inadequate pensions were seeing older persons depend more on their offspring than they used to or would like to. Such challenges must test severely the quality of the family unit. Mr Ban urged support for the family from policy-makers and decision-makers, from public institutions and private businesses.
While these global problems also exist in Guyana, the greater need here must be for healing of hurting families, especially children, and most importantly, for a more concerted effort towards stamping out violence in all forms but particularly against women.
Someone once said that every time a woman is killed a family or potential dies. If we don’t find a way to halt the killing of our women, then the death of our society is also imminent.
