‘Femicide’ in the Caribbean

This article was submitted by Roberta Clarke of the ECLAC Subregional headquarters for the Caribbean. She was led to writing this article agianst the increased incidence of domestic violence against women in the region

Caribbean newspapers are replete with the despairing accounts of the killing of women and children by men known to them, their partners and fathers. Over in Guadeloupe in March, a Dominican woman and her three children were stabbed to death allegedly by a Martiniquan man whom she had refused to marry. In Trinidad and Tobago where many murders of women have been committed this year, on International Women’s Day, 27 year-old Polly Ramnarine was chopped to death by a male relative in the presence of her 11-year-old daughter. On March 13th, Jennifer Ram, 26 and mother of three, was chopped to death by her husband of 11 years. The killing of Jennifer, which started in the presence of her three small children, was the culmination of an extremely abusive relationship which started when Jennifer was an unprotected child of 15. In the words of one relative whose knowledge of the abuse was just too futile’ he used to beat she for every little thing.’ On March 30, in that country again, a man killed his partner and her mother, this time in the presence of grown children.

These cases of “femicide” are at the very end of a vicious continuum which describes the lives of too many women in our region. Anyone who works on this issue will testify to the sheer ordinariness of extraordinary abuse of women by their partners and by male strangers.

While there is no doubt that the region has started to address gender-based violence, in so far as domestic violence is concerned, the issue has been approached from the perspective of services for victims. Very few prosecutions proceed against men who perpetrate criminal acts against their intimate partners and, as a result, the dominant message continues to be that crime committed against a female in a family or household setting is a private matter. Still increasingly, policy makers are debating whether mandatory prosecutions may not be necessary to communicate very unambiguously the state’s commitment to the eradication of violence against women. These debates are in part informed by a growing global consensus that violence against women is a violation of women’s human rights and requires clear state policy on the punishment and prevention of all forms of violence against women.

The understanding that violence against women is most often an expression of unequal power relations between women and men has led to an analysis of the ways in which socialising agencies (schools, families, churches, the courts) promote and maintain stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity. In March 2001, in Trinidad and Tobago, a man was sentenced to three years imprisonment for the killing of his 26-year-old wife who he alleged had been unfaithful to him. In passing the sentence after the jury found the accused guilty not of murder but of manslaughter, the judge reportedly stated that it was clear that the jury accepted the man’s evidence that his wife had conducted herself in a manner inconsistent with the love he had for her and the family life that they shared. It turns out from subsequent reports that family life for the deceased woman consisted of repeated physical abuse.

The sentence of three years has been interpreted in Trinidad as symbolic of the devaluation of the worth of women, a devaluation which finds expression most often in the treatment of women as the property of another and in the denial of protection of the integrity of the female person. The idea of female infidelity as ‘grave provocation’ sufficient to excuse violence is firmly rooted in patriarchy, a value system which not only accepts but perpetuates the notion of woman as the property of man. These notions are life-threatening to women and diminish men.

Despite the glaring evidence of women’s continuing experiences of gender based abuse and inequality, be they wage disparities, higher unemployment, greater family responsibilities, limited access to power and decision-making in the public and private sectors, there is a well spring of concern for “male marginalisation”. This concern typically arises in discussions on gender equality and the advancement of women, particularly in the education sector.

There is no doubt that we are witnessing social and economic alienation among many young men and women in the Caribbean. For young men, this alienation is revealed in a variety of public ways, from high school drop-out rates, early involvement in crime and violence, high risk behaviours such as drug use and inappropriate sexual behaviour and the shirking of familial responsibility. No one can deny the tremendously negative impact this alienation is having on our societies. Indeed, arguably, because of women’s primary role as the carers of families and communities, they are the first to feel the full negative effects of boys who no longer share the norms of their societies.

However, analyses of the causes of such alienation must address not only the gender-based origins of male alienation but also the ways in which socio-economic deprivations and inequalities contribute to the desolation of many Caribbean boys and men.

The United Nations human rights system based as it is on the idea of the indivisibility of all rights (political, social and economic) provides a framework within which discussions can take place on the meaning of citizenship and on ways to advance a commitment to respect for all.