A tip-of-the-iceberg analysis on murders

THE EDITOR: I read with much consternation Kevin Baldeosingh’s letter on the comparable diminutive significance of female domestic murders in TT.

Employing an arithmetic computation of the rate of domestic murders for the period 2010-2015, he finds that female murders represented only 2.5 per cent of aggregate murders over the period.

As such, Baldeosingh rebuts as a false equivalency, the concerns expressed by the wife of the President, Reema Carmona, over the “alarming murder statistics of the women who perish at the hands of domestic violence in Trinidad and Tobago.”

Indeed, Baldeosingh’s conclusion is that the statistics, far from alarming, are more representative of the historical cultural ethos to protect the “weaker sex.”

While I do not wish to suggest that Baldeosingh at best is being simplistic in his linear manipulation of figures, or at worst is being sexist in his conclusion, I do wish to suggest, however, that framing the complex problem of domestic murders in the categorical way that he proceeds, is anti-productive to securing meaningful solutions to murders at every level.

All forms of violence, including murders, should be deemed unacceptable, whether operating at the dominant centre or margins. Further, violence as a pathology intersects and straddles both families at intimate levels and communities at more nefarious gang levels. Thus, the predators are oftentimes not mutually exclusive.

We should all therefore reflect generally on the fact that TT has an endemic level of domestic murders as defined internationally at rates above 30 per 100,000 citizens; our murder rate for this year is already above 450 victims. For the year we rank 97th out of 163 countries on the Global Peace Index with estimated allocations to combating violence pegged at US$3.8 billion.

With respect to the specificity of domestic violence murders, the figure of 131 advanced by Baldeosingh over the period 2010-2015 should be viewed as the tip of the iceberg. Domestic violence murders stand at the end of the spectrum of violence against intimate partners and, as such, represent the failure of not only our criminal justice system but equally, or more importantly, our social justice system. Alarmingly:

* WHO statistics indicate globally that one in every three women you meet is traumatised by violence.

2. PAHO’s 2013 report on the Caribbean and Latin America indicated that between 28 to 64 per cent of female victims of violence do not seek help or speak to anyone about their attacks.

3. The Office of the Prime Minister (Gender and Child Affairs) has disclosed in its efforts at violence prevention that from 1991 to 2014 more than 125,000 applications for protection orders were filed in the court. And that in 2015, the police responded to 1,613 reports of domestic violence, 1,233 being made by women.

I would therefore argue that the dynamics of domestic violence and, ultimately murders related thereto, must be framed within the larger discourse of epistemological violence with an emphasis not on competing numbers, but rather analyses of root causes.

JOSEPHINE B EMMANUEL, Maraval

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"A tip-of-the-iceberg analysis on murders"

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