Carisa Lee

Even with no Car­ni­val this year, dozens of peo­ple still flocked to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah yes­ter­day. But their gath­er­ing was not in cel­e­bra­tion of any­thing but ac­tu­al­ly for the op­po­site, as they mourned the loss of the sev­er­al women who died due to vi­o­lence in this coun­try.

“What we love about Car­ni­val is the free­dom. That is the string of our Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. How­ev­er, there is no free­dom if we live in a coun­try we as women our sis­ters, our daugh­ters, our moth­ers, our friends in con­stant fear of vi­o­lence against us,” Keisha Als of Women in Car­ni­val said.

Equipped with signs that read, “enough is enough” and “women give life, don’t take ours”, the group walked to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter where, from op­po­site the build­ing, they called for jus­tice for those who passed on and pro­tec­tion for the women who are still here.

“Re­form the sys­tem”, “Cat­call­ing is vi­o­lence”, “Men stand up”, “Po­lice pro­tect us”, “Prime Min­is­ter pro­tect us”, “Leave me alone” were some of the phras­es the women shout­ed out­side White­hall.

Participants during the Women in Carnival march against gender-based violence at the Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

But in true Tri­ni spir­it, some por­trayed their ac­tivism in the cos­tumes of tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters. One Mid­night Rob­ber’s sign read, “I am madam mid­night rob­ber here to take back all you have plun­dered, do bet­ter.”

There were al­so Dame Lor­raines and Moko Jumbies.

Some so­ca artistes like Kees Di­ef­fen­thaller, Ri­car­do Drue, Patrice Roberts, Preedy, Nes­sa Prep­py and singer Denyse Plum­mer al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the walk.

Plum­mer and pi­anist Jo­han­na Chucka­ree were among those who per­formed.

Af­ter, the group con­gre­gat­ed out­side the Grand Stand, where they had a mo­ment of si­lence for the women who passed. They then called their names.

Adana Dick, Alana Mo­hammed, Aniya Mcleod, Ashan­ti Ri­ley, An­drea Bharatt, Or­nel­la Greaves and Ri­han­na Gor­don, were some of the over 70 women they re­mem­bered.

The demon­stra­tion, host­ed by Women in Car­ni­val in col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er groups, called for re­forms in the pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem, Po­lice Ser­vice and the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

A baby doll carnival character during the march for action against gender-based violence, Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain yesterday.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

“We live un­der a shad­ow where there is a war on women and a war on our bod­ies and we are not free to live the lives that we want and the lives that we de­serve and the lives we are en­ti­tled to,” Renu­ka Anand­jit, IGDS Ig­nite co­or­di­na­tor said.

To en­sure their voic­es are heard Anand­jit said they have start­ed a ‘Write your MP’ cam­paign so that apart from the vig­ils and protests, peo­ple can let those in au­thor­i­ty know ex­act­ly what they face on a day-to-day ba­sis in this coun­try.

“We have enough per­sons to take a stand... do some­thing be­cause if you don’t stand up this will con­tin­ue,” she said.

In­for­ma­tion on the cam­paign can be found on Fem­i­nitt’s so­cial me­dia pages.

Ac­tivist At­til­lah Springer com­pared Mon­day’s ac­tion to that of the Can­boulay ri­ots of 1881.

She said women were at the fore­front of the fight for free­dom then and they will do it again now.

Paula Hamilton-Amith in her portrayal of ‘I am Madam Midnight Robber.

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

“You used my body for your own ben­e­fit and now I am us­ing my body to in­sult you in­to rec­og­niz­ing that my body is ac­tu­al­ly mine,” she said.

She said it was the de­mands of the women of the time to do some­thing of the sit­u­a­tion that pre­cip­i­tat­ed the Can­boulay ri­ots.

‘And we need to ho­n­our that en­er­gy,” she said.