Think of the woman who in 2017 stripped naked and walked along Wright­son Road af­ter crash­ing in­to a car. The way our peo­ple jeered at her. Some months lat­er, I saw a meme, and I can't ver­i­fy its ve­rac­i­ty, but the sen­ti­ment was spot on. It said there was a tribe in Africa that recog­nised that when women show their naked­ness in pain, the shame be­longs to the men who hurt them. Sad­ly, it is like­ly to be men who cause suf­fer­ing. Why? They can. It's a man's beer and a man's world.

In 2018, of the 516 mur­ders, 47 were women, and 13 were chil­dren. On­ly six of the mur­dered women were 'gang-re­lat­ed.' The per­pe­tra­tors were among the 2,500 gang mem­bers amidst us (that's in Port-of-Spain alone). Add to that stress. Our women, moth­ers of the dead men, grieve. Add more. One in three women suf­fers from vi­o­lence at the hands of their part­ner in T&T (Source: 2017 IDB study).

Col­lat­er­al dam­age. That's what women in T&T are.

Take Caron As­gar­ali. Her sto­ry has been wide­ly re­port­ed. Yet, af­ter an in­tro­duc­tion, the first thing she said, al­most in­vol­un­tar­i­ly: 'I'm Caron, and I was shot in the face.' She caught her­self. Vi­o­lence is close to the bone for women.

I called her—Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 29, 2013:

It had been an ut­ter­ly ex­tra­or­di­nary day. Teach­ing 4th and 6th for­m­ers Chem­istry, at the San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary School, head­ing home to change for a run. That's when she felt the most joy, child­hood free­dom, rac­ing down the hills and up again, in dusk lit by flares from the oil fields, breeze on her face. An evening so pleas­ant that she called a friend to join her for a dri­ve.

The vi­o­lence that is the new nor­mal, the new or­di­nary in this roulette wheel that can strike any of us at any time struck her.

It took sec­onds to de­stroy her. She stopped at a mi­nor road in La Ro­maine. Her car was flanked by two ban­dits. She met the eyes of the ban­dit who would shoot her—the bul­let went through her left jaw, ex­plod­ed and ex­it­ed, ric­o­chet­ing on her chest and shoul­der; her friend be­gan dri­ving fast; ban­dits kept shoot­ing want­i­ng their get­away car; shots kept com­ing; her friend was scream­ing as blood was pour­ing out of her face; she was feel­ing like grav­el was stuck on­to her face, not know­ing yet her chin was blown off, hang­ing on with a sliv­er of tis­sue.

She has had in­nu­mer­able re­con­struc­tion surg­eries, lost her sav­ings, her job, friends, her life as she knew and loved. Three weeks on, she looked at her face in the mir­ror. She thought she must have looked scary to oth­ers, with gun pow­der marks, a gas­tric tube across her nose, so it looked like she had a trunk, an­oth­er tube stick­ing out of her neck to help her breathe and keep her par­tial­ly de­tached tongue in po­si­tion.

How did Caron re­turn from the ter­ri­fy­ing phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al edge of the world, how did she sur­vive it? Help­ing oth­ers. Ser­vice. It's the on­ly way out of heartache and the rot of the soul.

Caron's tips:

•Al­low close fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends in­to your life to help with prac­ti­cal, every­day chores and du­ties over­whelm­ing af­ter vi­o­lence.

•Take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your heal­ing. Recog­nise the signs of trau­ma and its psy­cho­log­i­cal symp­toms: flash­backs, over­sleep­ing, with­draw­al etc. Seek pro­fes­sion­al psy­cho­log­i­cal help. Join a sup­port group such as the Vic­tim Sup­port Foun­da­tion.

•Keep faith in the God of your un­der­stand­ing.

For pre­ven­tion of vi­o­lence, she says, women can on­ly do so much un­til prop­er leg­is­la­tion, poli­cies and strate­gies are im­ple­ment­ed.

•Go out in groups, in­clud­ing at least one male.

•Take a self-de­fence course.

•Sit strate­gi­cal­ly in pub­lic places, so you can see en­trances and ex­its.

•Keep your car keys in hand like a weapon when you ap­proach your ve­hi­cle in pub­lic spaces.

Caron says vic­tims of vi­o­lence of­ten feel for­got­ten, oblit­er­at­ed by sta­tis­tics but says, each act of vi­o­lence "doesn't af­fect just one per­son but all of so­ci­ety."

To sur­vivors, Caron quotes Nel­son Man­dela, "Not hav­ing for­give­ness will trap you in­to your own prison."

Next time you look away from naked pain, like the woman on Wright­son Road, re­mem­ber, "the shame be­longs to us all."