Justice for women and girls at Stabroek Market..

Left : Banner from Red Thread, right, banner from UG Institute of Gender Studies

The march chanted "We want Justice'  and the response was 'now' .
Saturday afternoon two days after a woman faced injustice in one of  the Courts when the police 'lost' her medical showing the injuries inflicted a man so the case was thrown out by the magistrate.


The chant is familiar. There are lots of young people. I am glad to see them though feeling sad as i was younger when I had started walking and chanting the same thing. The march was organised by Student Society Against Human Rights Violations.  The name reminded me of the early days of SASOD - Students Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination in 2003. Also stepping out of the University and in the community. 

The theme if the march I think is Justice for  Women and Girls .  There is a focus on those who hold power and abuse their power.
A cynical woman had said.. why only women , doesn't everybody need justice? I didn't bother to explain how the justice system doesn't work in favour of many women and girls.
Today is also the death anniversary of Courtney Crum-Ewing. 

The last time I had walked in an International Women's Day march was in 2014. 
I don't like marches and rallies, sometimes the platforms are unintentionally given to people who do nothing in their power for gender equality. Or Justice.
 And there is something about requiring the police and the police permission and so which well.. when the police are part of the problem and you feel a protest should be to hold the police accountable.

The march in 2014 had ended at the Promenade Gardens. Today's march was from Cuffy Square along Brickdam to Stabroek Market.  The Promenade Gardens today, at the same time of the march, a venue for another event by the Canadian High Commission and the Government. I am thinking of the woman who was told that 'case dismissed' and who has no Government agency to investigate and reopen and hold any of the people accountable for not even hearing the case against the man who had abused her. 
The only thing which seems to have changed about International Women's Day is there are now hashtags and lots of nice media things and so.

Nothing is really changing though. The same laws exist, but they are not enforced. The police and the justice system have no accountability to women and girls . There is a difference with this march though, there is a drone overhead.

I shut my mouth in the chants so I could listen. There are other NGOs in the line. There are one or two groups I had never seen in marches for IWD or IDEVAW.

I am glad there are many students who are  marching and chanting. A woman on my Facebook had talked about International Women's Day becoming gimmicky. My sandal burst as I am walking and I had to kind of drag my foot and walk. I had seen some images of men around the world including Guyana wearing high heels and wearing dresses and 'walking in her shoes'.  Thankfully, many women do not wear high heels and some of them might have sandals and slippers which burst at the wrong time. The police men in Uganda also carried the babies on the back, and water on the head. What would the Guyana equivalent be for men who really want to walk in women's shoes?



Would the Guyana Police Force one day have a booth at one of the Government organised IWD events with information as to what women could do when they are told that the evidence has been lost? 

Cane juice at Stabroek
The march ends at Stabroek Market. The organisers have a stage. The stage looks good with the backdrop of Stabroek. It is apparently not easy to arrange to use this space.

If Guyana was a proper country and Georgetown was a proper city, this space could have been used for public performances.. art and so.. , the hub of the city.  One or two people stop to see and hear what is going on.  I watch a woman eating a nice slice of watermelon. She rests her bags on the ground and listens as she finishes the watermelon. The place has cooled down. . In another mode, I could have gone up to her, give her a flyer or something and ask her what she thought about International Women's Day.

I stand near the cane juice truck '100 for a bag, 200 for a bottle.. ' playing over and over and over. I buy one bag and then another. The repeating sounds form a background to the messages from the stage. A woman was selling from the truck.  Now and then a music cart would pass. 



In a proper city, the public square could be easily be used for cultural performances and activities and there would be no competition from other loud music.

Years ago Red Thread had an interactive event around the same spot.. people signed messages on bits of cloth which were pinned to a banner. We had our first Groundings around here.

I should have offered to do a side thing to kind of interact with passersby but my head was on errands to be run and the cane juice I was drinking and on witnessing and not participating.

Up to when I left, all of the people speaking on the stage were younger than me. One singer, another musician, two poets, people working in organisations.

I am grateful to the organisers for arranging the march.