The bru­tal mur­der of An­drea Bharatt ear­li­er this year was a turn­ing point for the coun­try.

In the days and weeks af­ter the 23-year-old mag­is­trate’s court em­ploy­ee’s body was re­trieved from the base of a precipice in the Heights of Aripo, na­tion­al out­rage was ex­pressed in a se­ries of protests and vig­ils, many of them spon­ta­neous, de­mand­ing ac­tion from the au­thor­i­ties to pro­tect women and girls.

An­drea’s death was a tip­ping point. Three months ear­li­er, there had been the equal­ly bru­tal death of Ashan­ti Ri­ley, whose body was dis­cov­ered in a riv­er days af­ter she went miss­ing af­ter get­ting in­to a PH taxi near her home.

But there has been lit­tle or no change since those days of protest that con­sumed the na­tion in Feb­ru­ary and March. In just the past few weeks, Kezia Jene­ka Guer­ra’s body was found in a grave in the forests of Mara­cas/St Joseph and Re­hana Jag­ger­nauth’s bat­tered body was found in the Guaya­mare Riv­er. Both died in cir­cum­stances that were eeri­ly sim­i­lar to An­drea and Ashan­ti—they went miss­ing and were lat­er found mur­dered.

As T&T joins the rest of the world in ob­serv­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Women to­day, these trag­ic, un­time­ly deaths high­light how un­safe this coun­try still is for women and girls

There is a need for de­ci­sive and ur­gent ac­tion in keep­ing with the theme for this year’s com­mem­o­ra­tion—Or­ange the World: End Vi­o­lence against Women Now!

To­day is the start of a UNiTE to End Vi­o­lence against Women cam­paign around the world—16 days of ac­tivism that will end on De­cem­ber 10, In­ter­na­tion­al Hu­man Rights Day. This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­sure that the cries for change heard when the na­tion col­lec­tive­ly mourned the un­time­ly deaths of An­drea, Ashan­ti and all the oth­er women lost to gen­der-based vi­o­lence were not in vain. There must be ac­tion that will yield tan­gi­ble re­sults.

Be­fore COVID-19, one in three women and girls in this coun­try were vic­tims of abuse and at least a quar­ter of those had ex­pe­ri­enced some form of phys­i­cal and sex­u­al vi­o­lence.

The emo­tion­al abuse, con­trol­ling be­hav­iour, threats, stalk­ing and sex­u­al and phys­i­cal vi­o­lence that many women en­dure, al­so have de­bil­i­tat­ing ef­fects on fam­i­lies and the wider com­mu­ni­ty and the pan­dem­ic has on­ly made that sit­u­a­tion worse. Last year, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) re­port­ed a 140 per cent in­crease in cas­es of abuse of women and girls com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. Anec­do­tal in­for­ma­tion sug­gests it is even worse this year.

That is why to­day, the colour or­ange should be vis­i­ble in every nook and cran­ny of these twin is­lands, sym­bol­is­ing a com­mit­ment by every law-abid­ing cit­i­zen to a fu­ture in this coun­try that is free of vi­o­lence against women and girls.

There needs to be a re­dou­bling of ef­forts to in­crease aware­ness, pro­mote ad­vo­ca­cy and search for so­lu­tions. The en­er­gy and ef­fort ex­ert­ed ear­li­er this year in the af­ter­math of An­drea’s mur­der should be re­vived and di­rect­ed to­wards ac­tiv­i­ties that will bring about re­al change.

In sup­port of that cause, let’s colour T&T or­ange to­day.