Silent Witnesses speak!

By Terresa McCall
Reporter-SKNVibes.com

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Silent Witnesses spoke loud and clear yesterday ((Dec. 5), bringing to remembrance the brutal and heinous death persons in the Federation suffered as a result of domestic violence.

Fifteen Silent Witnesses, taking the form of purple silhouettes with each bearing the date of birth, date of expiration and the cause of death of persons who lost their lives to intimate partners or domestic violence since 1988, were perched to the front of the old Treasure Building. These included three men.

Many passersby paused to either peruse the information written on the silhouettes or make inquiries as to what they are and the purpose of them being there.

In an exclusive interview with SKNVibes, Director of Gender Affairs Ingrid Charles-Gumbs explained that “domestic violence is alive and well” evident by the 50 requests for protection orders received by the District “A” Court during 2008. She said the superseding goal of erecting the silent witnesses is to raise awareness about the domestic violence and its consequences, and thereby effecting a positive change in the incidents of other forms of criminal activity.

“The silent witnesses here represent people who have died in intimate partner violence, domestic violence over a period of time and what we try to do is raise awareness by putting the witnesses out. They evoke a lot of emotion. Some people come by and they are their relatives, they are their friends, they can identify although there are no names on them, and, so every year, during the 16-day campaign, we try to put the witnesses out…”

The Director said yesterday’s event was also a local observance of the internationally commemorated “16-Day Campaign” against gender violence.

“Every year, during the 16-Day campaign which starts on November 25th and ends on December 10th, which is Universal Human Rights Day, we focus on gender-based violence with a view to lowering the incidents so that we could realise a lowering of the incidents of societal violence because we know that there is a definite connection between the two.

Tomorrow (Dec 6) happens to be the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, an incident which took place in Montreal in 1989 when a gunman went into the University of Montreal’s engineering faculty and killed 14 women because he thought that they were preventing him from getting into the faculty himself.  So every year the 6th of December is commemorated.”

“It is also hoped”, the Director expressed, “that in our society we will never forget the price that we have paid for family violence.