The Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre (WROC) said it shared the justifiable outrage of all well-thinking Jamaican citizens over the recent spate of killings of women which has been taking place in different parts of the country.

“We share the view that the situation is linked to a number of factors, among them that too many men and women are engulfed in historically rooted patterns of violence, poverty and underdevelopment, and have not been afforded, across generations, to lift themselves into leading productive and rewarding lives,” WROC said in a press statement.

“The system of patriarchy continues to socialise men into a false belief that they have the right to control women, even by the most violent means. Consequently, gender-based violence including rape, intimate partner violence (or domestic violence), sexual harassment and incest, committed mainly against women and girls, seems almost ‘normal’ in some communities,” WROC complained.

The organisation said measures that had been taken to address gender-based violence in the society — from the policy to the operational level of the police force — had generally been ineffective.

“For example, every time, when the occasion seems befitting, promises are repeated that the National Strategic Action Plan to eliminate gender-based violence ‘soon-come’. The latest promise was just a few weeks ago. At the operational level, citizens continue to complain of inadequate responses by the security forces to complaints that are lodged at the station…

“Our experience points to the fact that a comprehensive response is needed; one involving the State, civil society and the private sector to implement the many measures put forward, including those issued in the ‘call to action’, by the Economic Growth Council.”

WROC urged the society to go further, proposing that once complaints are lodged with the police about cases of domestic violence, “the State becomes the injured party to ensure that complainants do not subsequently drop the cases as so often happens”.

It said this should increase the confidence of members of the public that cases of domestic and gender-based violence affecting women and girls in particular, but also men, would be treated with greater sensitivity and professionalism by female police personnel;

WROC called for immediate steps to implement the National Strategic Action Plan to Eliminate Gender-based Violence.

“We propose that the proposed measures be integrated into the measures and targets to be monitored within the context of the Partnership for a Prosperous Jamaica and the work of the Economic Growth Council,” WROC said.