THE government has affirmed its commitment to putting strategies in place to address violence against women at all levels, following the country's last December's ratification of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women.

"The convention speaks to the whole issue of violence against women and this specific convention relates to the prevention, punishment and eradication of violence against women. It recognises that full respect for human rights has been enshrined in the human rights convention and it sees violence against women as a human rights issue," said Faith Webster, acting executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs.

The signing of the convention, she said, "means that the government is really reaffirming its commitment towards eradicating violence against women. They are dealing with the issue by putting strategies in place to address violence against women at all levels."

Webster said, however, that even before Jamaica ratified the convention, the bureau had been actively pursuing strategies to combat the problem of violence against women.

"So far, we have been doing a lot of programmes on the ground to deal with the eradication of violence against women. For instance, we have done several public education campaigns to address issues of gender-based violence against our women," she said.

"Even at the legislative level we have been seeking to amend some of our laws, which are either irrelevant or outdated," she added.

Webster said that at the legislative level the bureau has made recommendations for the Offences Against the Persons Act to be amended, to address issues of sexual abuse.

In addition, she said the Domestic Violence Act was recently amended to include visiting relationships, which allows women in such relationships to seek redress under this law if they find themselves being battered or violated.

"Prior to the amendment of the Domestic Violence Act, a significant portion of women involved in visiting relationships would have no redress as there were a number of gaps in the law," she Webster.

In the meantime, she said the bureau had to grapple with quite a few issues, including the need for more focus to be given to the enforcement of the laws as they related to violence against women. "We know specifically that we must also seek to ensure that the enforcement of the law takes place because oftentimes it is said that the law has no teeth," she said.

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