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local Tuesday 29 November 2022
University of Aruba dresses in purple against gender-based violence
ORANJESTAD – The Univer- Aside from the play, there
sity of Aruba together with was also a T-shirt exhibition
the Foundation Against at the entrance of the uni-
Relational Violence show- versity that represented the
cased the theatre play story of each victim of gen-
‘Stop the Beating’ with der-based violence. “Each
the goal of informing the T-shirt has a different mes-
community and creating sage. We have some that
awareness regarding child are from adults but also
abuse. from children, with mes-
sages that the victim can
The play ‘Stop the Beating’ express. For example, one
has a goal of breaking the says ‘not allowed to touch’,
silence and starting a more which represents maybe
open conversation on the sexual or physical abuse.
topic of child abuse. Nor- This way we highlight what
mally a theatre play in this is happening”, Tromp said.
form will be more focused
on showing the story of Sasha Geerman, of the De-
the victim, however, in this partment of Social Affairs
case emphasis is also put was present during this ac-
on understanding the story tivity to give support to the
of the aggressor and un- students at the University of
derstanding the pattern of can educate and create the taboo regarding child The play was created by Aruba, and she explained
child abuse. The organizers awareness in the communi- abuse on our island. Archell Thompson and Jet- that they joined forces with
believe profoundly that art ty of Aruba in order to end tie Medema. It stars Sophie the Foundation Against Re-
Noguera, only 17 years old. lational Violence on the in-
This project was executed ternational day against all
to commemorate Interna- forms of violence against
tional Children’s Day, but women and girls. They also
also the International Day joined the campaign of 16
Against Gender-Based Vio- days of activism worldwide,
lence, in collaboration with which will end on the 10th
the department of the So- of December with the In-
cial Work & Development ternational Day of Human
study at the University of Rights.
Aruba.
Also available was a QR
Janice Tromp, senior stu- code for people to do a
dent in Social Work & De- self-test regarding violence,
velopment at the University but also on how the person
of Aruba explained to our feels. After the play, they
reporter that the depart- had an open dialogue with
ment came with this initia- those presents on themes
tive to bring awareness at regarding family law, vio-
the university, so that other lence within the family, and
students can also know toxic masculinity in Aruba.
what violence means. “Be-
cause it is a topic of which As a worker in the Depart-
we don’t speak too much ment of Social Affairs, Geer-
in Aruba, it is something man mentioned that this is
that is behind closed doors. a topic that they confront,
Basically we are breaking and they have a section of
this stigma regarding do- social workers and couple
mestic abuse.” and family therapists. A few
days ago, precisely, they
As social workers, they were mentioning how in
stand for the people who many cases that present
cannot use their voices. involving couples, there is
Many times, victims are one or more degrees of vi-
afraid of speaking and olence involved – however,
come forward because of this doesn’t mean that help
the thoughts and opinions is unavailable.
of others. “From our side,
we advocate for this group They see cases that re-
so that they can feel em- ceived guidance and can
powered and depend on overcome the period of
us. This is basically the rea- violence. “This gives us the
son why we came up with assurance that we can pro-
this activity”, Tromp point- vide help to those who are
ed out. open to receive it”, Geer-
man finalized.q
