The Caribbean community talks about the importance of preventing gender-based violence through arms control

On November 26-27th, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Center of Excellence in Statistical Information on Government, Crime, Victimization and Justice (CoE) participated in the Sub-regional Seminar “Preventing Armed Violence Against Women Through Arms Control” organized by the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) in the city of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

In the Sub-regional Meeting, 11 countries members of the Caribbean community participated together with 6 international and regional organizations. During the two days of the event, representatives from law enforcement institutions, members of departments of gender relations and civil society discussed about the armed gender-based violence in the Caribbean countries.

The Center of Excellence presented the Module on Possession of Firearms of the Latin America and the Caribbean Crime Victimization Survey Initiative (LACSI). This Module is experimental and has the objective of measuring the prevalence of presence of firearms in a country, together with the level of acceptance of behaviors related to the use of firearms, among other aspects. This Module is being implemented in the Crime Victimization Surveys of Jamaica and Saint Lucia through the technical support of the UNODC Center of Excellence. The CoE also presented an analysis of the information provided by the CARICOM countries to the UNODC Illicit Arms Flows Questionnaire (UN-IAFQ). The database of this questionnaire is available in the UNODC Data Portal.

By participating in this Seminar, the Center of Excellence gets involved in the measurement of firearms in the Region, creating a network of alliances with other agencies and programs involved in the contrast of this phenomenon in Latin America and the Caribbean.