Trinidad & Tobago’s epidemic of violence towards women
The violence that women are subjected to are determined the second they depart from their mother’s womb, the violence that their mother knows all too well.
From birth, women are given a spoken manual on how to behave, how to attain society’s impossible beauty standards and most importantly how to keep themselves safe from men. We mustn’t wear provocative clothing, we mustn’t travel alone, we mustn’t be too outgoing, because that’ll give us the unwarranted attention from men. And men’s reaction to rejection is like a ticking time bomb, whether that explosion decides to be minimal or not, it is still the woman’s fault.
The countless of intangible spoken manuals that women receive from other women in their life, has helped women navigate their life living in a patriarchal society. Women aren’t given the same courtesy as men, society doesn’t allow us to shield behind the outdated rhetoric “boys will be boys”, women’s innocence and adolescence are violently stripped away from them the minute they are forced to grow up and cater to men.
The never-ending, exhausting cycle of violence towards women, begins with an inappropriate comment that you were too young to understand, to then being catcalled in your school uniform, to then street harassment whilst you’re out shopping with your friends on a regular Saturday morning, to then sexual harassment when you’re out with the girls having drinks and then the sexual abuse happens when he distracts you whilst slipping something in your drink. Now of course, there are different variations of the traumatic cycle but the violence that women are subjected to don’t change.
The unfortunate death of Sarah Everard spread around the world like wildfire, her death was at the hands of the police officer who abused his power and ruthlessly stole her life. Her death made an impact on the entirety of the United Kingdom and the news instilled in many women that any of us could’ve been Sarah.
Intersectional feminism and especially Womanism allows all women to be heard and treated as equal. As all races, classes, genders, sexualities and religions cannot be excluded nor erased. White feminism ignored the history of how their actions affected marginalised communities, they forget how Susan B. Anthony and the suffragettes dismissed the voices of Black women whilst simultaneously standing beside white supremacists.
White feminism focuses on body hair, how to be the best female CEO, #Freethenipple and a plethora of trivial topics that is insubstantial compared to what Women of Colour experience in their daily lives. They fail to realise that their silence is complicit, in the violence that is perpetuated against Women of Colour.
Women have been victims of violence from men for centuries. Throughout this callousness, women have been there for each other, creating this beautiful sisterhood foundation. I spoke to 18-19 year old, Trinidad and Tobago locals, Tia and her friends Alyssa, Shania, Isabella, Shanika, Kara and Kelaiah, who created a women support group for victims, survivors and essentially a safe space for women to feel safe and be heard.
Gender-based violence has been ruthlessly present in Trinidad and Tobago for decades, there has been an abundance of protests in retaliation for the injustices that Trinbagonian women face but also in solidarity for those who lost their lives at the hands of men.
“Educate your sons, don’t weaponise your daughter’s”
In 2020, 416 young girls and women were reported missing. Which means hundreds of families dealt with shared pain and shared trauma, because they knew that their glimmer of hope, their countless of prayers wouldn’t bring their daughter’s home. Tia shared, “the daily reports of young girls disappearing makes me feel disturbed and afraid to use public transportation”.
A new tactic that these kidnappers and murderers are doing is impersonating taxi drivers, by changing their license plate to a fake H license plate. Women have sadly lost their lives due to men taking advantage of their trust and vulnerability. 22-year-old Andrea Bharatt maliciously lost her life after getting into a taxi and never making it home. Her disfigured body was discovered six days later. Similarly, 18-year-old Ashanti Riley, was found in a stream deceased five days after getting into a taxi and vanishing. She’d been raped, stabbed and beaten.
There has been cries from Caribbean islanders, begging the Trinidadian government to do something meaningful and protect Trinbagonian women. Initially, there were petitions circling around the islands pleading for tasers and pepper sprays to become legal.
Trinidadian Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has shown his scepticism as he believes that abusers could use pepper sprays and tasers against targeted victims.
Isabella says, “as of right know, the government are decriminalising pepper sprays and tasers for personal protection, but why should women be put in this situation of arming themselves? When men could be educated on how to treat women. Educate your sons, don’t weaponise your daughters”.
The education system and youth centres are partly to blame, if those are the institutions that shape young children’s minds, wouldn’t it make sense for schools and institutions alike to teach generations to come the importance of consent?
All seven girls said that none of their schools educated their male classmates on the importance of consent and how damaging the toxic and fragile masculinity mindset is. 18-year-old Alyssa voiced her concerns of her male classmates not being held accountable. “If schools educated boys about consent and how harmful fragile and toxic masculinity is, perhaps the percentage of sexual assault wouldn’t be so high. It’s because society allows boys to hide behind the narrative ‘boys will be boys’, which means they’re entitled to get away with a lot”.
Alyssa continues, “a few of my friends have been touched inappropriately by their male classmates, I’ve heard disgusting locker room talk by boys who I thought were my friends! It’s dehumanising that boys don’t treat us with respect. And it makes you think that maybe if they were taught how to see women as people and not objects, women wouldn’t be living in this reoccurring nightmare”.
In order to dismantle the behaviours that stem from locker room talk, we must tackle rape culture immediately by confronting the misogynistic society that we live in. Again, this stigma causes victim blaming to occur, where people shift the blame from the assailant to the victim. This protects the individuals, and society, from confronting the reality and the degree of sexual assault and challenging a status quo that enables and permits rape culture.
Kara reveals, “there’s a small, small percentage of women that receive justice. Those that report their boyfriends or husbands to the police about domestic violence, and if the police are able to provide their partners with a restraining order, the men don’t care! Doesn’t matter if you get a restraining order, or escaping your man to seek safety, you’re dead either way. Look at what happened to Reshma Kanchan”.
Reshma Kanchan was brutally murdered by her abusive ex-husband, the 25-year-old and mother of two left her ex-husband months before the attack. Her mother, Davica Kanchan, said that her daughter’s ex-husband stalked and abused for Reshma Kanchan for months until the day he ruthlessly stole her life.
Women constantly get the blame for men’s actions. Being the victim of sexual abuse? Our fault. Staying in an abusive relationship? Our fault. In 2017, Prime Minister Rowley, was criticised for insensitively victim blaming women, he said, “you called on the Prime Minister to do something about crime. I am not in your bedroom; I am not in your choice of men”.
This is where the problem begins, men absolve themselves from their male counterparts’ actions because they are not the ones who are physically harming women yet hold the misogynistic mindset because they believe it is the women’s fault for not recognising the warning signs earlier. However, by maintaining that belief society is allowing abusive men to avoid accountability.
Kelaiah believes, “that dismantling the misogynistic mindset starts at home from the parents. By educating our sons, brothers, fathers, uncles, whoever – this could prevent a lot of sexual abuse and assault because we’re reinforcing that dehumanising and degrading women is just not okay.”
Both Andrea Bharatt, Ashanti Riley and Reshma Kanchan, followed all the rules that women are told to do keep themselves safe. Bharatt travelled home in the taxi with a friend, Riley was travelling to visit her grandmother and Kanchan escaped an abusive relationship. Similarly, Sarah Everard, walked in well-lit areas, alerted her boyfriend on her whereabouts and wore bright clothing.
This proves that women follow an extensive routine to protect themselves from unknown dangers, but men abuse their male privilege to harm women. Trinidad and Tobago’s judicial system allows bail for certain accounts of rape and violence. This reinforces the idea that rape is a low-ranking crime, and it makes it harder for survivors to come forward, because there is a high possibility of their abuser not being held accountable.
The girls agreed that are a small percentage of women that get justice, but it is still not enough. “Few times the perpetrators are caught and sentenced, but it’s not enough!”, Kara declared.
Kara’s right, 2020 was an awful year for Trinbagonian women, the idyllic island which is home to 1.4 million people, 47 women and girls were murdered in the last year.
“There is so much work to be done to protect our women, and young girls. We cannot go on like this. We cannot continue to exist in fear because we are unsure of who people say they are, we cannot live in a society where we are terrified to walk down the street, go to the grocery store and even walk to our own mailbox. It’s terrifying but also tiring, because what have we done?”, boldly says Tia.
The island of paradise, which is famously known for their lively carnivals, has been overshadowed as the island known for the high levels of femicide.
The government’s lack of involvement of protecting women from the twin islands has been highly criticised. Shania critically says, “it’s hard being a woman, but being a Black woman in a patriarchal society which is riddled with misogynoir is tough. The government’s lack of involvement with protecting women, especially Black women is emotionally taxing”.
“The only time crime and women’s violence comes out of these politicians’ mouths is when its election time. They pretend to care so that they can get votes, and it’s so performative because their empty promises never help our broken communities”, Shanika later discloses.
Women of Trinidad and Tobago feel unprotected by the government and the police force, they are begging for serious external evaluation of their police force and reformation. They are begging for those who are in power to protect them and not perpetrate crimes against them.
The misogyny and gender-based violence that affect Trinbagonian women are glaring the government and the criminal justice system right in the face. But the refusal to take meaningful action is causing citizens of Trinidad and Tobago to lose faith in the system.
“It’s so crazy that it’s more likely for men to be held accountable by the criminal justice system over drug charges, instead of sexual assault and rape. How is that supposed to make women feel? People asks for drugs; nobody asks for rape” says Isabella.
“We can have all the protests and women support groups in the world, but what can actually be done if our government and police are doing the bare minimum?”, insisted Tia.
These brave girls’ frustration, anger and hurt, is mirroring what every woman in the world feels. Violence against women is inescapable. Women are taught to change our routine home, to cross the road to avoid being catcalled, to not wear provocative clothing, to wear multiple layers under our clothes so that the perpetrator will have difficulty abusing us, to hold our keys in our fist and be prepared to use it against an abuser when needed, to have our friends on speed dial, to constantly reassure our mother of our whereabouts. Women are not the ones who need to change.
“We’re not the first women support group, and we most definitely won’t be the last!”, says Tia, “initially, we created the group because we shared similar stories and had the same views about these topics and I’m glad we did because this group is my safe haven”.
I may be biased, but I think that women are the future. There are Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) based in Trinidad and Tobago led by women, who are confronting the misogyny that is rife within their society and educating the masses the importance of treating women with respect.
All seven girls said they were inspired and admired the work of @Feminitt and @Holeiswhole, both NGOs based in Trinidad, whose aim is about creating conversations to achieve gender justice and equality, empowering women and having an intersectional Caribbean feminist outlook.
Comparably, in the UK Everyone’s Invited campaign founded by 22-year-old Soma Sara, who has utilised her Instagram, @everyonesinvited, which has almost 46k followers to focus on exposing and creating a conversation of rape culture. With 16,554 testimonies of anonymous survivors, sharing their traumatic experiences of catcalling, sexual harassment, abuse and more on the website. Soma’s aim with creating Everyone’s Invited, was to improve the education system’s approach to misogyny and sexual abuse that takes place in their school or affects their pupils outside of school.
The popular website that is used to expose the misogyny and sexual harm within schools around the United Kingdom, has even got the attention of education inspectors OFSTED and multiple news media outlets. This shows the importance of community organisations and Non-Governmental Organisations that are using their resources to educate their target audiences and more, debunking myths and stigmas, whilst also providing a safe outlet for women to feel safe.
These seven girls hope for the future, like many other women around the world is for women to be living in social harmony with their male counterparts, to no longer be subjected to violence and be living in fear.
“My hopes for the future, is for women in Trinidad and Tobago to be listened to. I want the men, the politicians and the police to hear our cries for protection”, says Tia.
Alyssa mentions, “If the education system, youth centres and rehabilitation centres change the way how they teach young boys and men, then I will remain hopeful for the future”.
“In the near future, I want women to be able to do what we want, when we want. Constantly, thinking about whether my actions is going to affect how a man will treat me is tiring, I just want peace. I’m tired of being fearful whilst travelling, I’m tired of getting into PH cars and thinking “is this it?”. It’s exhausting to allow men to behave the way they do, because I’m scared if I tell men to leave me alone or go away, that they would take away my life”, wishes Isabella.
Kara is hoping for a female prime minister or more women in the police force who could implement impactful laws and protect Trinbagonian women, “Look at New Zealand and their prime minister [Jacinda Arden], seeing a woman in power who cares about her citizens is amazing. I am so tired of having male leaders and men in higher positions not caring about women and having a misogynistic mindset because it’s telling boys and men that male entitlement is okay”.
Shania’s hopes for the future are to work alongside women in power and help local communities, “I really believe that women are the future. I want to do whatever I can to make that change and make life easier for women in Trinidad and Tobago. Watching male leaders do nothing is so exhausting, women in this country have to deal with constant abuse and gaslighting. In the future I don’t want my daughter to experience what her predecessors experienced”.
Kelaiah is dreaming for a future where women are being heard, “I want the justice system to listen to women and hold abusers, rapists, kidnappers and sex traffickers accountable. In this country, rape is considered a low-ranking crime. I want the people in power to change their outdated mindsets because have those beliefs are so damaging and there’s the evidence to prove it”.
“If men understood the fraction of what women experience in our daily lives, I think society would be so much different because they wouldn’t be able to handle it. Here in Trinidad and Tobago, abortion is illegal, and if we do over the counter abortion women can face jail time. The only time where women can abort the foetus, is when the women has been raped. We get denied the most basic things, and I think if roles were reversed men couldn’t handle it. They can’t fathom having a basic human right being illegal, it’s more likely for a woman to be convicted over abortion than a man to go to jail over rape”, Shanika shares.
Shanika continues, “so, I think if the education system makes some changes, and have parents teach their sons the importance of consent, and how harmful it is to obtain fragile and toxic masculinity and the struggles that women have to go through in a misogynistic society, the future would look much brighter”.
In the rise of the #MeToo movement and the momentous conversation about women’s violence that arose after Sarah Everard’s death, plenty of cries came from men pleading that it’s “not all men” who are dangerous to women. Every woman has the right to be afraid of every man, because every abuser, murder and rapist is somebody’s son, brother, father, husband, uncle and so forth.
Women do not have to be your daughter, sister, mother, aunt and grandmother to be treated with dignity and worthy of not being abused, they are someone – and that should be enough.
Femicide is the real epidemic of Trinidad and Tobago, globally women are affected by the violence that they are subjected to and are constantly being blamed for men’s behaviour.
Women have been outspoken about the abusive relationship that they have with men’s entitlement for centuries, when will men finally listen?
Feature image by OrnaW /682 images images from Pixabay.
This was such a difficult subject matter to tackle but I think you did it really well. The passion of the group of women really came through clearly in your writing, and I like your emphasis on more women being in charge in the hopes that we’ll have non-machismo forms of safety and protection. It reminded me a lot of initiatives like the Centre for Foreign Policy. It’s also great you had so many interviewees and I hope we get to hear more about the work of women’s groups in Trinidad in future artices for Artefact!