Richard?Lord

Women, men and chil­dren as­sem­bled at the Na­tion­al Li­brary, Abre­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain, last evening de­mand­ing an end to vi­o­lence in T&T.

This as the Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women and Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Abused and Bat­tered In­di­vid­u­als staged a sol­i­dar­i­ty vig­il for 20-year-old banker Shan­non Ban­field and the oth­er 45 women who were killed in T&T this year.

They held their can­dles and formed a hu­man shield in front of the li­brary on Aber­crom­by Street.

The de­mand­ed: "Vi­o­lence must stop! Vi­o­lence must stop, now!"

Oth­ers read po­ems and gave brief re­marks in­sist­ing that Ban­field's death would not be on peo­ple's minds for on­ly nine days.

"We will not stop think­ing about her death," one woman said. An­oth­er said: "We have reached break­ing point in this coun­try over crime, we have reached break­ing point." An­oth­er said: "Enough is enough, this must stop now," while an­oth­er speak­er said: "We have to be­come our sis­ter's keep­er and broth­er's keep­er."

There was a po­lice pres­ence at the vig­il.

Mar­cus Kissoon told the T&T Guardian the vig­il was not on­ly for Ban­field but all those who had been killed vi­o­lent­ly in T&T.

"This is a com­mu­ni­ty is­sue and not just an in­di­vid­ual is­sue, " he said.

He stressed: "The on­ly way that we could take back our coun­try is if we stand to­geth­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty."

Kissoon said: "We have had enough and we are call­ing on our men to stand up with us and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and re­claim the role of head healthy man­hood and save our women and chil­dren."

Ban­field was found dead in an IAM store on Char­lotte Street last Thurs­day, days af­ter she was re­port­ed miss­ing.