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Thursday, July 24, 2025

Rise in attacks against women worries activist

by

20160306

As the world cel­e­brates In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day to­mor­row, vi­o­lent killings and at­tacks con­tin­ue against women in T&T, the lat­est be­ing Aam­i­na Mo­hammed, 30, a geri­atric nurse of Debe and Jen­nifer Ram­per­sad, an ac­counts clerk from New Grant.

Mo­hammed, a moth­er of two, was sup­posed to be in the Mag­is­trates' Court in Princes Town to­day for a hear­ing in a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ter, but in­stead was found with her throat slit and her body thrown in bush­es off Re­trench Vil­lage Road, San Fer­nan­do last Fri­day.Her killing brought the mur­der count to 88 for the year to date.

On Sat­ur­day, 35-year-old Ram­per­sad was dis­cov­ered by her daugh­ter suf­fer­ing from chop wounds. She sub­se­quent­ly lost her left hand from the wrist and the right hand from her palm was al­most sev­ered. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve the at­tack­er is some­one she knew as there were no signs of forced en­try.

The Po­lice Ser­vice has re­port­ed that for the pe­ri­od 2005 to 2015 there were 263 mur­ders re­sult­ing from do­mes­tic vi­o­lence com­plaints, out of which 151 were fe­male and 112 male.While it has not been re­port­ed that Mo­hammed's killing was com­mit­ted by a male rel­a­tive or com­pan­ion, ac­tivist Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att said yes­ter­day that this could very well be the nat­ur­al as­sump­tion.

"One of the most com­mon signs for women to be mur­dered is when they leave their hus­bands. Al­so in­ter­est­ing in this case was there was no sign of a bat­tle.

She (Mo­hammed) was ly­ing on her back with her throat slit and she was ful­ly dressed and had sliv­er bracelets so she wasn't robbed. So no­body knows if she was just in a lone­ly place," Ma­habir-Wy­att said in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

But she al­so wad­ed in­to com­ments made in a dai­ly news­pa­per by T&T Vi­tal Voic­es' Nicole Joseph-Chin, who had said if women learn to ap­pre­ci­ate them­selves there would be less chance for them to be vic­tims of abuse.

Joseph-Chin was at the time speak­ing to mem­bers of the me­dia at the start of the sec­ond Vi­tal Voic­es Glob­al Men­tor­ing Walk T&T, in com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, on Sat­ur­day.She was quot­ed as say­ing, "... women's bod­ies are ac­tu­al­ly the cat­a­lyst for is­sues that con­nect in terms of abuse".

Ma­habir-Wy­att dis­agreed with the com­ments, say­ing, "That is a dan­ger­ous state­ment. "She is con­nect­ing abuse with women's bod­ies...and the rea­son why peo­ple get killed is be­cause they have at­trac­tive bod­ies and if we ap­pre­ci­at­ed our­selves more then we wouldn't be abused.

"But I don't think that af­ter 40 years of deal­ing with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in T&T that I could pos­si­bly agree that it is just be­cause women have at­trac­tive bod­ies that that caus­es do­mes­tic vi­o­lence... that is not even bare­ly re­al­is­tic."

She likened Joseph-Chin's com­ments to that of for­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Ray­mond Tim Kee, who had said that women had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure they were not abused and need­ed to main­tain a lev­el of dig­ni­ty dur­ing Car­ni­val fes­tiv­i­ties.

Tim Kee had made the state­ment in re­sponse to the dis­cov­ery of the body of Japan­ese na­tion­al Asa­mi Na­gakiya, whose body was found un­der a tree at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah on Ash Wednes­day.She was still dressed in her Car­ni­val cos­tume.

Say­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence was caused by the per­pe­tra­tor and not by the vic­tim, Ma­habir-Wy­att said whether the vic­tim ap­pre­ci­at­ed her­self or not does not mean that she would not be abused.On whether there was enough ef­fort by the po­lice in the fight against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, Ma­habir-Wy­att said this could nev­er be enough.

"I don't think the po­lice could ever do enough to pre­vent do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

"I don't think it is the po­lice that have to pre­vent do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, al­though they should pay more at­ten­tion when some­body has al­ready re­port­ed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and has al­ready ob­tained a pro­tec­tion or­der and what hap­pens even if they have ob­tained the pro­tec­tion or­der.

"This can en­rage the per­pe­tra­tor...they are not sane...they just go out of their heads, take re­venge.

"In this case (Mo­hammed's), if it was a re­venge killing it quite pos­si­bly could have been," Ma­habir-Wy­att said.

The Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women is ex­pect­ed to hold an ex­hi­bi­tion at the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade and lead a walk through Port-of-Spain to­mor­row, start­ing from 9 am, in cel­e­bra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day.


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