THE Jamaica Labour Party is demanding urgent action to halt what the party described as the “brutal attacks” against women and suggested expert intervention and meetings between the national security minister and women’s organisations to seek the possible causes and develop strategies to combat the problem.

According to the Opposition spokesman on national security, Derrick Smith, the latest figures showed that gunmen have murdered approximately 150 women since the start of the year – a figure which he said reflected a 20 per cent increase over 2004 and doubled that of 2003.

Such staggering figures, he said, cannot be treated as simple statistics but as a “cultural deviation which must be addressed before it takes root”.

“Our cultural tradition is to protect women from savagery, not to make them primary objects of such violence, therefore it is frightening to imagine this sudden turn of events where they have become the focus of these violent criminals,” Smith said.

He said the recent kidnapping of a schoolgirl along Waltham Park Road, as well as last Thursday’s abduction and rape of three women in Kingston, was direct evidence of how vicious and prevalent such acts have become.

The three women – two of whom were identified as Simone Vernon and Catrina Webb, both 20 – were taken from a bar along First Street, Newport West by armed men early Thursday night.

Police believed that the women were later taken to Greenwich Town where they were raped, shot and dumped in a sewerage plant.

The third victim, however, managed to escape the pit but, up until yesterday, the marine police were still trying to find the bodies of Vernon and Webb, which they believed may have been washed out to sea.

Several persons have since been held in connection with the case.

But the JLP said such vicious acts cannot be allowed to continue, saying unless the matter is addressed with expert advice, the figures would likely grow even higher, leaving Jamaicans “even more puzzled by the lack of sympathy for our women”.

“It is time that the social agencies of government, as well as civic bodies with primary concern about the well-being of women, turn their focus on this issue and see what can be done to arrest its development and restore the tradition of respect and care for women as our mothers, sisters, aunts and nieces,” Smith said.