Excerpt from the Jamaica Observer column published Monday, March 29, 2021
By Jean Lowrie-Chin
Thirteen years ago Jamaica went into collective grief after news came that 11-year-old Ananda Dean, who had been missing for two weeks, had been brutally murdered. Both her mother, Nordia Campbell, and her aunt Tamika Campbell fainted when they learned the terrible details. It was after this chilling event that the Ananda Alert was established, demanding immediate police action when a child goes missing.
On the first anniversary of the disappearance of 20-year-old The University of the West Indies student Jasmine Dean, last month, her father sounded empty and exhausted, relating his sleepless nights and his anguished calls for justice.
The unrelenting missing persons announcements fill us with dread, as often the worst news follows. Only last week accounting clerk Khanice Jackson went missing after leaving for work on Wednesday morning. On Friday news came that her body had been found near the Portmore Fishing Village. The police now have a suspect in custody.
Meanwhile, the courts are in the process of sentencing Jermaine Miller, who is convicted of the murder of his former girlfriend, Nevia Sinclair, at her parents’ home last year. What is it about these men who will not allow a woman to go in peace if she wants to end the relationship?
WMW Jamaica (formerly Women’s Media Watch) has been warning, for years, about the danger of objectifying women in the disturbing lyrics of some dancehall music and music videos showing more close-ups of women’s body parts than of the women themselves. I understand that there are video games doing the rounds since the late 90s which give scores for seizing women and raping them. Now, can you imagine a boy playing this repeatedly until such a crime becomes normalised in his mind?
Our girls and women are in grave danger, not only here in Jamaica but throughout the world. We learned that President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdrew last week from the Istanbul Convention drafted in his own country in 2011, an international treaty to combat violence against women. It is understood that hundreds of women in that country are murdered with impunity each year by relatives, citing these as “honour killings”. Women gathered last week in London to mourn and protest the death of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who vanished earlier this month while walking home in Clapham, south London. The women interviewed by the British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC) said they were in fear of their lives.
One of the most horrific crimes in recent days was a gunman’s attack on women in three massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia. Incredibly, his lawyer is trying to offer as his defence that he is a victim of sexual addiction.
As women try to protect themselves, comedian Trevor Noah became very serious on the topic, demanding that men must take responsibility for their behaviour. He said they had no business commenting to women they do not know on their manner of dress or catcalling them. He called on men to respect and protect women.
While we call for men to be more responsible, women know this will not happen overnight. We hope we will be allowed to carry mace and pepper spray. Also, here is a tip I posted on Twitter that has gone viral. This is how you set up the SOS feature on your android phone:
– Go to Settings
– Click on Advanced Features
– Click on SOS and put in names of emergency contacts
– Then if you are in danger you press your power button three times and it sends a message and your location.
My friend Judith Lannigan McDonald says the iPhone has ‘Emergency SOS’ in settings so you click on that and proceed as above.
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