Businesses called to be part of movement vs violence, abuse

Northern Marianas Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence executive director Maisie Tenorio spoke to the members of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce in line with April as the “Sexual Assault Awareness” and “Child Abuse and Neglect Awareness Month” at the Pacific Islands Club Saipan. (Frauleine Villanueva-Dizon)

The business community was challenged by the Northern Marianas Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence to look into each of their organizations’ “culture” as well as policies relating domestic violence and sexual abuse.

NMCADSV executive director Maisie Tenorio spoke to the members of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce during their monthly general membership meeting last April 6 in line with this month being proclaimed “Sexual Assault Awareness” and “Child Abuse and Neglect Awareness Month”

“Domestic violence and assault is everywhere. No one is immune, everyone can be a victim and that includes your employees or members of your families and that’s the unfortunate reality of our world,” Tenorio said.

Tenorio said they reaching out to the community to take part in their action.

“We’re calling out on you to be part of the movement,” Tenorio said.

She said that one thing that a company can do is to develop policies about domestic violence and sexual abuse to help or give support to their employees who may be victimized.

Another way a company can do is to “analyze the organizational culture,” according to Tenorio.

“Many of us think as sexual assault as something outside of work but often times it lives and breathes in the spaces that we occupy. Your company may have a culture that promotes safety and health, emotional health, physical health, and that’s great. But not all issues are like that,” Tenorio said.

Tenorio said she “challenge you to really think about the organizational culture to analyze and how people think and feel when they work for your company.”

She added that this will say a lot if the employees will feel comfortable to come to their employees for help should they experience abuse.

With this year’s theme “Inspire courage, take action, and stop sexual violence” Tenorio said they are focusing on educating the public regarding assault and abuse so that they will be able to identify and know how to respond when such an incident occurs.

“Our focus, our campaign this year is to really challenge our community to be courageous about sexual assault because that’s what it takes,” Tenorio said, “It really is on us to end domestic violence. It really is a call to every single one of us.”

Although there is no “good local data” in the CNMI to determine cases of abuse and violence, Tenorio said their national partners noted that the “numbers are pretty serious.”

Nationally, one in 400 will experience abuse, Tenorio says, while globally, 1 in 3 will be victims. Majority of the victims are still women and girls

“Think about that in our community,” Tenorio said.