Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Dr Ho­race Chang, says the re­cent acts of vi­o­lence com­mit­ted against women and girls will re­main as a stain on Ja­maica’s na­tion­al char­ac­ter even as he promised that such acts will not be tol­er­at­ed and will be met with the full force of the law.

Chang, who is al­so the Deputy Prime Min­is­ter, said in a state­ment that the vi­o­lent in­ci­dents are deeply trou­bling and that they are not on­ly crim­i­nal vi­o­la­tions but moral ones, adding that they are of­fences against Ja­maica’s “shared val­ues of de­cen­cy, jus­tice and hu­man dig­ni­ty”.

He said that the in­ci­dents have al­so caused na­tion­al out­rage, in­flict­ed deep pain on fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties and have shak­en the moral con­science of so­ci­ety.

These in­ci­dents in­clude the dis­cov­ery last Sat­ur­day of skele­tal re­mains be­lieved to be those of Anisa Dil­worth, a miss­ing Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy (UTECH) stu­dent on a beach in St. Cather­ine, the phys­i­cal as­sault of a nurse in uni­form, in a road rage in­ci­dent in Mount Friend­ship, St. An­drew last Tues­day, the stran­gu­la­tion and as­sault of nine-year-old, Kelsey Fer­rigon, and the sex­u­al as­sault of two girls, ages nine and 10 on May 7.

“As min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, let me state un­equiv­o­cal­ly- vi­o­lence against women and chil­dren will not be tol­er­at­ed! These acts will be met with the full force of the law,” Chang said, adding that these atroc­i­ties were oc­cur­ring dur­ing Na­tion­al Child’s Month, a time meant to af­firm in­di­vid­ual com­mit­ment to the safe­ty, well-be­ing and fu­ture of the na­tion’s chil­dren, is par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­tress­ing.

Chang said that the An­drew Hol­ness gov­ern­ment re­mains stead­fast in its com­mit­ment to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of women and girls and by ex­ten­sion, the chil­dren of Ja­maica, promis­ing that the per­pe­tra­tors will be brought to jus­tice.

He com­mend­ed mem­bers of the Ja­maica Con­stab­u­lary Force (JCF) for their swift, thor­ough and pro­fes­sion­al in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to these pub­lic-in­ter­est cas­es.

He said their ef­forts, sup­port­ed by the vig­i­lance and co­op­er­a­tion of re­spon­si­ble cit­i­zens, have led to the ap­pre­hen­sion of sus­pects and the swift pro­gres­sion of these mat­ters in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

“We will not rest un­til our homes, our streets and our com­mu­ni­ties are safe for every Ja­maican,” he said.