A stark failure

THE EDITOR: In TT for donkey’s years at pandemic portions, violence against women and girls has been affecting females from all walks of life – be it domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, kidnapping, street or cyber harassment, including threats of such acts, whether occurring in public or in private life.

This scourge is one of the starkest collective failures of the nation, and a major violation of women’s and girls’ rights. A climate of impunity prevails and perpetrators rarely face justice.

Under international law, states are obliged to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls and act with “due diligence” in this regard. Laws are critical tools through which key components of due diligence can be articulated and applied. The use of pepper spray “soon” is a necessary welcomed response.

While positive, the nation’s enduring outrage at the moment reinforces the concrete governmental responsibilities to protect from harm previously in old and new leaders’ shadows. Daunting as the challenges appear, there is now an urgent, life-saving need for leaders’ commitments to translate into action.

Laws are means, not ends, to eliminating this scourge. These crimes are committed primarily, although not exclusively, by men. So political leadership must now prioritise to redress harmful social norms which so far have perpetuated and allowed them to occur.

Enough words, time for action, for the actors to step and stand up to eliminate these crimes. The public’s collective action happening now leads the way. Please listen to the people.

ULA NATHAI-LUTCHMAN

lawyer, UK