I have often heard of women being influencers, co-conspirators, and motivators of gang activity, gang violence, and gang domination.

There is truth to this. Many conflicts in slums start over women. However, I don’t believe that women as casualties within the gang world has been properly examined.

Femicide does exist and is an important consideration in any discussion regarding violence in Jamaica. It occurs too often, but it is not the primary crime committed against women in the world of gang domination in Jamaica. It is, however, the most important.

The first and most prevalent crime is the deprivation of women’s right to choose whom they give their body. Let me tell you a story. Some years ago a known criminal was shot dead in a gang zone that was not his own, after engaging a police party. There was a woman with him at the time. I wanted to understand why. So I asked a source about the nature of her relationship with the criminal. He told me that they were not really an “item”. The man had been given refuge by the domiciled gang and had appointed this woman to be his partner.

This puzzled me. I come from a world where passion or possessions influence relationships. Nobody can instruct a woman to serve as a man’s lover and housekeeper. You see, I wasn’t brought up in an inner-city. If anyone tried to force my sister to sleep with someone and she told my father, they would be dead. It’s that simple. In truth, daddy was a ‘real bad man’, but my neighbour wasn’t, so he would have called the police if his daughter — adult or child — was being forced to do anything whatsoever that she didn’t want.

Anyhow, I was a young social studies student at the time so I found a way to talk to this woman. She explained to me that she was 30 years old and had always been instructed — since she was about 14 years old — about whom she could sleep with.

This instruction always came from the senior members of the gang in her community. She told me that she had seen this man being brought into the community by the “big man dem” and was told that he would be staying with her and she should “tek care of him”. He contributed very little and was unkind to her. Quite frankly, her attitude to his passing was a cross between ambivalence and relief.

This woman and her story are not unusual. The only thing that will bring about a change for her is ageing to a point where she becomes too unattractive to be considered ‘gang property’.

I have seen gang members declare war on other gang members because this type of control mechanism was being used against family members of theirs. It does not take a lot for you to become a “gang bitch” — meaning all gang members sleep with you when they feel like it and there is not a lot you can do about it.

The targets are usually the women in families that don’t have strong male gang members. They also come from families that are not particularly respected in the community. Families that are respected usually have a few more resources than others. So the degree of your poverty will determine whether you have the right to decide whom you will sleep with.

I once knew a young woman who lived in Gregory Park in a slum. She did well academically from an early age. She earned a place in a traditional high school and seemed conscientious and intelligent. I watched her grow up.

When she was in about fourth form and 16 years of age I realised she was involved with a gang leader in the community. I asked her, “Why in the world would you get involved with a mongrel like that?”

She replied: “If mi deh wid him, at least a him one mi deh wid and the rest a dem haffi leave mi alone.”

Apparently, she was being harassed into becoming ‘gang property’, so rather than move out of the community — which would be her only other option — she decided to get involved with the one who could protect her from the rest.

I asked her, “Why didn’t you involve me in this issue? Do you somehow doubt that I could have had an impact?”

Her reply was, simply: “You nuh live yah. If you did, den you coulda protect all a we.”

She was correct. The influence and impact of the police are very limited when we’re not on the ground. The only thing that could really end gang domination of innocent citizens in inner-city slums is if the military and police become domiciled there.

That is why the zones of special operations are so effective. That is why the parochial states of emergency were also so effective. I don’t think that as a society we are doing enough to reduce the authority that gangs have over the communities that they live in. The Government and the police try their best, but society is so much more than just the Ministry of National Security and the armed forces.

I see civic groups and people with national positions talking about police transparency, body-worn cameras and financial declarations of ministers. These are all important, but they wane in comparison to the issue of the thousands of women in our inner cities who don’t have the basic human right to determine whom they have sex with.

The reason it is not that important to society in general is that there is an incredible divide in our country that goes way beyond economics. Within poor groups, the inner-city occupants are viewed as lower than other groups within similar income brackets. So rural poor, although not treated equally, is still viewed as higher than ghetto poor.

If you live in a hardened ghetto, you are on the lowest social rung possible. This is the reason why this type of tyranny is allowed to exist. It’s not political expediency that causes it, although it helps. It’s that society views this group as dirt. That is the sad reality. If this were not so, there would be a massive movement to end gang domination of women in inner-city environments. Have you ever heard Jamaicans For Justice say this issue is a priority for them?

I bet you that it’s a subject that is hardly ever broached in any public debate. It is never a political issue. I guarantee you that the discussion won’t be had at your dinner table.

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