Residents of Barbuda are being encouraged to sign up for the upcoming Barbuda leg of the Men & Women United 2025: Stop Gender Based Violence Walk. for which registration was launched just over a week ago, on Monday, February 17. The walk is happening in Barbuda on Saturday, March 15th, 2025, beginning at 12 midday in Codrington. The primary goal of the overall event, which has a component in Antigua and one in Barbuda, is to encourage all citizens to advocate against sexualised and gender-based violence (GBV).
The organisers of the walk, the Integrated Health Outreach Gender Based Violence Coalition (IHO-GBV), say that it is important to capture all residents of the twin island state in the awareness and advocacy initiative now in its second year. Communications Specialist with Integrated Health Outreach (IHO), Kieron Murdoch stated that it was important to ensure that all residents had an opportunity to participate.
“Gender-based violence affects every community – big or small – whether we want to acknowledge it or not. When women and girls live everyday with cultural norms that perpetuate physical, sexual, emotional and economic violence, none of us can claim to be removed from the problem. Raising awareness helps to remove the stigma and shame and sends a signal to survivors that violence is never their fault,” Murdoch said.
In 2024, Barbuda residents came out in their numbers displaying placards advocating against violence and calling for safety and respect for women and girls. Just as with the Antigua leg of the walk which is happening on Saturday, March 8th, 2025, registration for the Barbuds walk on Saturday, March 15th, 2025, is free and participants will be given a free t-shirt to wear on the day.
Register here for the Barbuda walk, March 15th: https://qrco.de/bfjIP7
IHO is a nonprofit organisation and the IHO-GBV Coalition is an arm of IHO. When the Coalition launched the Men & Women United 2025: Stop Gender Based Violence Walk several weeks ago in January, IHO stated in a release that “Gender-based violence is a gross violation of human rights, a public health crisis, an obstacle to sustainable development, and a scourge that our society too often ignores”, adding that GBV occurs as a result of “societal norms about men and women’s roles and their value in society”.
The walk is a project implemented by IHO in partnership with the Directorate of Gender Affairs (DoGA) which collaborated with IHO on the project in 2024 and 2025. The initiative is supported by the Equality Fund and Global Affairs Canada.
