KINGSTON, Jamaica — Government Senator, Saphire Longmore, said Friday that, according to a local Women’s Health Survey (WHS), 20 per cent of Jamaican women have been beaten during pregnancy by their male partners.

She also noted that, according to the survey, women who have been pregnant were significantly more likely to experience physical abuse by their partners (27.4 per cent), than women who had never been pregnant (11.3 per cent).

Longmore, who was making her contribution to the Senate’s annual State of the Nation debate, pointed out that the beatings involved “kicking or punching (the women) in the abdomen”.

She noted that the information was taken from the first ever WHS, which was conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport and launched by the ministry earlier this year.

“Pregnancy and the celebration life for our children, heightened…times of stress and in relationships, played out in some of our gruesome crimes of passion,” the senator, who is a psychiatrist, commented during her presentation in the Senate.

She was speaking on the issue of violence in the society impacting on healthcare and not recognising “the horrific plight of some of our women and children”.

Longmore paid tribute to Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, for highlighting some of the issues in a statement to the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Balford Henry