In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­source Net­work (IWRN) pres­i­dent Adri­ana San­drine Rat­tan-Isaac has is­sued an ap­peal to the State for ac­tion, fol­low­ing what she de­scribed as an un­prece­dent­ed spate of bru­tal mur­ders tar­get­ing women in T&T.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day, Rat­tan-Isaac re­vealed that from Jan­u­ary to Ju­ly 17, 2025, 26 women have been killed—many in hor­ri­fy­ing cir­cum­stances.

“Can our na­tion be­come more cru­el than this? That’s the burn­ing ques­tion on our lips right now,” she asked.

Her state­ment came hours af­ter the dis­cov­ery of 22-year-old Can­dice Hon­oré’s dis­mem­bered body stuffed in a suit­case and dumped in a pond in Va­len­cia yes­ter­day.

Rat­tan-Isaac said the IWRN was “ex­treme­ly dis­tressed” not on­ly by the vol­ume of mur­ders but the na­ture of the vi­o­lence and its im­pact on the coun­try’s women—de­scrib­ing them as “our moth­ers, grand­moth­ers, sis­ters, aunts, en­tre­pre­neurs, and more im­por­tant­ly, our nur­tur­ers.”

She called for im­me­di­ate col­lab­o­ra­tion among state en­ti­ties, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, civ­il so­ci­ety, and in­ter­est groups to con­front the is­sue head-on and craft work­able so­lu­tions.

“The pro­tec­tion of a woman re­quires col­lec­tive ef­fort and in­stead of act­ing as if it’s busi­ness as usu­al, the state and stake­hold­ers need to come to­geth­er on a uni­fied plat­form,” she said.

Ad­dress­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar di­rect­ly, Rat­tan-Isaac ac­knowl­edged that the new ad­min­is­tra­tion was still in its ear­ly days but said ur­gent state in­ter­ven­tion was crit­i­cal.

“Madam Prime Min­is­ter, we know that you have just tak­en of­fice. It’s still ear­ly, but we re­al­ly need a state in­ter­ven­tion. How do we pro­tect our women? How do we treat with mit­i­gat­ing this burn­ing is­sue that’s af­fect­ing our coun­try where cit­i­zens do not feel safe?”

She said the coun­try must first con­front the scope of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty be­fore it can be­gin to heal.

“This is an ur­gent plea,” she con­clud­ed.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der is urg­ing women to be care­ful when us­ing so­cial me­dia as part of their per­son­al lives to keep them­selves safe.

Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Alexan­der said the Gov­ern­ment takes all mur­ders se­ri­ous­ly but de­clined to go in­to fur­ther de­tails.

How­ev­er, when pressed, he said in­for­ma­tion on Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-crime plan was be­ing de­vel­oped and would be re­vealed in time.

“As time goes by, you all will be able to get the in­for­ma­tion which in­volves the chang­ing of a lot of things, just al­low things to hap­pen. Yes, peo­ple are dy­ing but we too, as cit­i­zens, have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. I want peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly women, to be care­ful with so­cial me­dia in terms of dat­ing be­hav­iours.”

Alexan­der re­ferred to his past as a po­lice­man and host of the Be­yond the Tape talk show, not­ing he would be par­tic­u­lar­ly care­ful about di­vulging in­for­ma­tion over any on­go­ing crim­i­nal probe.

“Back then I made a state­ment as a po­lice of­fi­cer, not as a line min­is­ter. I want the po­lice to do their job, my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to give the po­lice the tools to do the job.”

Alexan­der al­so said the pro­cure­ment of equip­ment for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices was not as straight­for­ward as some might be led to be­lieve, not­ing the reg­u­la­tions and pro­to­cols were lengthy.

“When­ev­er an in­sti­tu­tion, take for in­stance we pro­cure ve­hi­cles, some­times things wait for as long as a year. My Fire Ser­vice team is wait­ing for equip­ment for a year, so it’s not like I can walk in­to a store un­less its Toys R Us and buy these things and walk out. I want to get what is good and what is world class for my of­fi­cers to fight crime ef­fec­tive­ly.”

Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein, who al­so at­tend­ed the brief­ing, said he felt the Gov­ern­ment had al­ready made sig­nif­i­cant strides in crime-fight­ing and pub­lic safe­ty, as he ref­er­enced the ap­point­ment of a per­ma­nent Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, the draft­ing of leg­is­la­tion for home in­va­sions and stand-your-ground law which would be go­ing out for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion this week.

—With re­port­ing by Shane Su­perville