The Tribune

A 26-year-old father was charged with incest, indecent assault, and child cruelty this week. He appeared before Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt for sexually abusing his three-year-old daughter.

A 29-year-old man was accused of indecent assaults of his 13-year-old niece. A man was convicted of “unlawful sexual intercourse”, an odd term for rape, the survivor the 15-year-old daughter of his friend.

A 28-year-old, accused of sexual abuse of his six-year-old daughter, appeared before Magistrate Kara Turnquest-Deveaux last week on charges of incest, indecent assault, and cruelty to children.

A man was recently sentenced to 28 months in prison for groping — sexually assaulting — a woman who was a tourist. On sentencing, Ferguson-Pratt told him he had affected tourism, the largest industry in The Bahamas, and the man reportedly apologised to the Bahamian people for having this effect on the industry.

The tourism industry, somehow, is more important than the lives of women who are consistently experiencing gender-based violence of various kinds.

Not only are we failing to appropriately deal with gender-based violence in homes and in the street, but law enforcement and those in the justice system are completely disconnected from the reality of this issue and the impact it has on human beings.

This week, Police Superintendent Chaswell Hanna claimed the media is exaggerating in its reporting on crime. He said murders are tragic, regardless of gender. He went on to repeatedly use “female” instead of “woman” — or “girl,” where appropriate — and said the police have not had investigations that found women or girls were killed because of their gender.

He gave various examples, including “cases where a female may have been in an abusive relationship that ended in a death, which we classify as domestic”.

Whether or not the police have the requisite knowledge or training on gender, gender-based violence, and femicide, and whether or not they understand what constitutes gender-based violence or femicide — the killing of a woman or girl because of her sex or gender — these classifications are appropriate for many murders in The Bahamas.

The murder of Nellie Brown-Cox was femicide. A decade ago, a mockery was made of this woman’s death as people make disgusting comments, as though funny, about taking similar actions to that of the man who brutally murdered her.

The murders of Alicia Sawyer and her eight-year-old daughter Ednique Wallace were femicide, following reports of gender-based violence and the failure of the police to protect them.

Following her death, police claimed they were out looking for the man who had threatened to kill her, and not even a single officer was stationed outside of her home — the most obvious place that she could be found.

The murder of Heavenly Terveus was femicide. She had received threats, and he had reportedly shot at Terveus’ sister in 2021.

The death of Carissa Culmer was femicide. She made public pleas for help, and she did not receive the type and level of support she needed. She died by suicide.

There are many other names, stories, and cases that have been forgotten. Sometimes these deaths are recognised as end results of domestic violence, but rarely identified as gender-based violence or femicide.

This is not because those are not appropriate terms, but because there is a lack of knowledge, unwillingness to learn, and insufficient laws, policies, programmes, services, and training for first responders.

One of the two themes of the Global 16 Days Campaign in 2021 was ending femicide, recognising it as a pervasive issue that is driven by misogyny — the hatred of women.

The campaign produced an advocacy guide on femicide that ought to be studied by the Royal Bahamas Police Force and anyone who does, claims to do, or wants to do work to end gender-based violence, end violence against women, and/or support safe, healthy home environments for women and their families.

We cannot work to end domestic violence, intimate partner violence, or any form of family violence without understanding what femicide is and recognising it as an end result of gender-based violence and the failure to address issues of misogyny and patriarchy.

Femicide does not happen in a vacuum, and it does not come out of nowhere. It is usually preceded by other forms of abuse, threats, and harassment.

Femicide, then, is preventable. In most cases, femicide is perpetrated by intimate partners.

Fifty-eight per cent of all intentional killings of women in 2017, as an example, were perpetrated by intimate partners, and femicides were 18 per cent of all intentional homicides.

Hanna has demonstrated what happens when we do not use terms like “femicide” or train stakeholders on gender-based violence. People completely miss what is happening. They see the intentional killing of a woman by, for example, a former partner who refuses to move on and is determined to ensure that they stay with them, or have no opportunity to be with anyone else.

This perpetrator tells her so for months. He accuses her of cheating when they were together. He sends text messages, shows up unannounced, makes contact with her loved ones, and makes it clear that he has no intention of going away. He behaves as though he owns her. He bullies and terrifies her. To him, no woman can turn him down or walk away from him. He is man and, according to him, that means he can dominate women. He decides how things go in a relationship, and if he does not want it to end, he will ensure that it continues, by any means available to him.

This includes gender-based violence which can take the form of harassment, threats, stalking, physical abuse, and rape.

The woman is scared and exhausted by the messages, phone calls, and appearances of this person. Everyone tells her to get help to make him stop.

What do police say in these situations? In most cases, they tell woman to go back to the person, or they tell the woman that there is nothing they can do because he has not done anything to her. Yet. To them, the harassment does not count for anything. The threats mean very little.

When she is found dead, they make public statements about a “lover’s quarrel” or a “relationship gone bad”. We may hear that reports were made, but no responsibility is taken?

Why not? For starters, the police do not know — or get away with pretending to be ignorant about gender-based violence. They act as though they have no idea what it looks like or how, in the worst cases, it ends. Then, members of the police force like Hanna refuse to acknowledge that the murder is femicide, a gender-based killing.

If we do not name and count the intentionally killings of women and girls are femicide, we will have incomplete data. We depend on the police classifying homicides are domestic violence-related, and that does not capture all of the cases.

Domestic violence, first of all, is distinct from intimate partner violence. The latter can occur between people who do not live in the same household while the former refers to violence between people in the same household.

If we do not know how many cases of domestic violence end in femicide, we do not get a complete picture and there is less impetus to respond to domestic violence in more appropriate ways.

Knowing that a certain proportion of domestic violence and intimate partner violence cases lead to femicide can change the way police officers view those cases.

They may begin to see people who are fearful and who know their lives are in danger rather than unreasonable people in bad relationships (as they seem to perceive people quite often).

They may take reports of harassment, stalking, and threats more seriously. They may understand that the law does not cover everything, and can start to see signs and different types of activities that require intervention. At the very least, they can join those of us who are already advocating for better laws for the protection of women.

Language matters. Classifications matter. Statistics matter. The way police respond matters. The resources and services available to women and girls help to determine whether or not they survive, as does the law and the access to justice.

Violence against women has not be exaggerated in the media. Domestic violence has not been exaggerated. Intimate partner violence has not been exaggerate. The media has reported on real cases. It has reported on cases of femicide, though it has not used that term (and it should). Femicide includes killings of women resulting from intimate partner violence, and it includes gang-related killings which were mentioned by Hanna as a separate category. It includes deaths related to organised crime, starvation, deliberate acts by the State, and death by suicide when a woman does not get the help she needs.

How many cases of femicide have there been last year? How many in 2021? How many have there been since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? When will we start counting the intentional killings of women and girls, when will decision-makers acknowledge that these deaths are preventable, and when will action be taken to end gender-based violence?

For more information on femicide, get the advocacy guide at 16dayscampaign.org.

To help end gender-based violence in The Bahamas, contact Equality Bahama at equalitybahamas@gmail.com and keep up with the Building the Gender Machinery series.