Yinka Maria Strachan, who was named yesterday as the woman whose body was found in a canal suffering gunshot wounds.
By LEANDRA ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
lrolle@tribunemedia.net
EDUCATION Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said she had been assured the Gender Violence Bill is in its final drafting stages, saying the legislation must be brought to the House of Assembly.
Eagerness and interest in the legislation have grown amid escalating reports of violence against women.
In just the past week, three women were killed. Yesterday, the latest woman to become a murder victim was identified as 42-year-old Yinka Maria Strachan after her bullet-riddled body was found in a canal.
“I spoke to the minister (of social services) to find out the status of it and it’s in its final stages and I think there is consultation that’s going on,” Mrs Hanna Martin said yesterday. “I believe that it’s dealing with more issues than a straightforward issue, and that’s why it’s probably being shared now for consultation but the legislation has to be brought because the message has to be sent that these forms of violence are not acceptable and that there will be consequences and we hope it will help to serve as a deterrent.”
Last month, Social Services Minister Obie Wilchcombe told The Tribune the Gender Violence Bill would not be rushed to Parliament. He was responding to former Attorney General Allyson Maynard Gibson, who noted the bill was initially drafted 10 years ago.
A spokesperson for the Bahamas Crisis Centre told The Tribune yesterday the government has been consulting the centre on the bill.
The Tribune obtained a 64-page version of the 2016 bill.
The bill mandates the government formulate and approve a national gender-based violence policy to establish strategic aims for eradicating gender-based violence.
It says victims of gender-based violence are owed a professional duty of care from professionals, which should involve helping victims obtain shelter, medical treatment, legal services, counselling or other needed services.
The bill outlines what officers must do when a written complaint about a gender-based crime is lodged. This includes interviewing the parties and witnesses, recording the complaint in detail and providing the victim with an extract of that complaint, and accompanying and protecting the victim as they seek to retrieve their personal belongings.
Mrs Hanna Martin said she is concerned about violence against women.
“it’s very, very concerning,” she told reporters. “This is a global phenomenon, and to see an increase in our own country. We’ve always had high levels but to see this increase, at least in recent times, is very, very disturbing.”
“I just happened to be reading a research piece by the World Health Organisation, which was done in 2005, which speaks to this issue of gender-based violence and I think it’s something that we have to really ponder upon as a people.”
“We’re seeing it in the schools,” she said. “We’re seeing it on the streets and then you have this peculiar, very insidious thing of violence against women or gender-based violence which has very serious implications because a lot of times it happens in the home and it has just terrible implications. So, I think the nation needs to reflect. I think a lot of it has to do with how women are viewed, the stereotypes associated with women, the continuing inequities certainly in our constitution and elsewhere, and cultural perpetuations which suggest that women do not have equal placement in certain environments.”
She also responded to Free National Movement critics who said women parliamentarians in the Progressive Liberal Party have not been vocal enough in advocating for women’s issues.
“No one has ever accused me for not being vocal and certainly, no one in the opposition Senate can accuse me of that so that would be my answer to them,” she said. “They would have to speak their conscience and speak their truth and I will do the same. Certainly, I don’t think that they’re in a position to say that I’m not vocal. I’m very vocal when I deem it necessary and so that’s my answer to them.”
Comments
bahamianson 1 year ago
Hold on, are we ending violence against men and women , or just violence against women......just to be clear. Politics is a disgusting game. Men are constantly shot but there is no outcry to end violence against men. Is is normal to have violence against men but not women? It seems like it is not normal to have violence against women. I am not blaming women for the poor selection of bad boy , drug dealer, mother disrespecter pick in boyfriends, but women need to take some responsibility in the thug they puck. Now, no one should be abused , regardless of their poor decision in men.
GodSpeed 1 year ago
Nobody cares about men, only children, women and animals.
Greentea 1 year ago
What a stupid statement. So you think women are abused because of their choice in men? Do you think men appear in women's lives announcing their plans to beat and kill them? And do you think only boyfriends kill women? Get to the back of the class and put on your dunce cap. The common denominator in violence in this country is MEN - young and old. MEN commit violence against other men, women, children and animals. MEN need to take responsibility for themselves and their actions and stop blaming their victims, women, children, animals, the moon, sun and stars for their actions. MEN who know better need to help other MEN. Stop belittling attempts to protect human life just because those attempts aren't directly about your self centered self serving backside.
bahamianson 1 year ago
Hello there, you are oblivious . You are proving my point. Touche, my point exactly is, this isnt a violence against women thing, it is a violence against everyone thing. Focus and.stop looking at the trees.... see the forest.
The_Oracle 1 year ago
Legislate all you wish, you let the violence/murder/vigilante cat out of the bag decades ago, legislation will not put it back in. the law is observed by Honest citizens, not outlaws and politicians.
LastManStanding 1 year ago
These women need to sit small and stop opening their mouths because the minute the police come to lock up their sons we will hear the usual "he was a good boy who dindu nuffin" spiel that has become iconic at this point.
mandela 1 year ago
Minister Hanna Martin can start with the minister in her party who is accused of violence against a woman.
birdiestrachan 1 year ago
Laws , are good , but the hearts and minds of people is what means the most, some are evil from birth children of Satan and others become evil due to circumstances
themessenger 1 year ago
"some are evil from birth children of Satan" Birdie, you ain tired looking in da mirror???
carltonr61 1 year ago
Domestic violence does not count violence on women by women as gender violence. Women chap women mire than men. But to mux a cocktail of Domestic murder with marritial rape is reaching your arms across the ocean. The dots miss and do not add up.
Greentea 1 year ago
where is your evidence? what percentage of violence against women is the result of female on female violence?
carltonr61 1 year ago
Most of the violent brawls I have seen lately involved female students and adults. We just have to let them cut themselves up. If men intervene we are automatically charged with gender abuse. These girls acting out like bad man, up in ya face with bottle and finger jabbing even in the process of defending innocent family members. These females these days are special. It is like a parallel universe in the Bahamas. Parents can't touch them. The schools can't touch them. Adult males cannot touch them. If we go to the police to make a complaint on a muss behaved female we become a laughing stock. Woman rules and are lawless.
carltonr61 1 year ago
@greentea. You are a laugh. When females give you an encounter gave my prayers.
SP 1 year ago
More asinine rhetoric from our out-of-touch politicians. Literally, thousands of men were murdered over the decades and the politicians were just fine with that.
Now a few big-mouth, gold-digging women are murdered and suddenly we need new laws?
Why the hell should there be separate laws for violence against women? Violence is violence period!
bahamianson 1 year ago
Exactly, I was making this same point farther up this thred.the murder count is all about men on bail. Now, a few females get killed, and we need laws to protect themm? What cacka.
carltonr61 1 year ago
Most fights my insightment are screamed on by females. A few years ago a young man on moterbike crashed over a car racing from an Officer. He was not hurt. The Officer produced his cuffs and firearm. I am just a civilian and thought it my duty to protect the Officer's back with my license shotgun so I stood behind him. Crowds gathered. The females starting making noise pointing their fingers at the Officer and cussing me. They really tried to insight something. A backup Police car arrived and I haul tail. Boy houl don't know our females.
carltonr61 1 year ago
Female accomplice gang members scout out areas before murders. They act as accomplices in bringing drugs and knives to and from schools. Without female involvement there would be no crime inThe Bahamas.
themessenger 1 year ago
@greentea, they won't let you down, they won't disapoint you. Sometimes in life you have to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong. Its a male african thing, JEE!
carltonr61 1 year ago
It is the females students who are involved in introducing youngsters to drugs on weekends facilitating the lesb craze then moving them on to further exploitation. Recall, that in the 1980s, the females seduced our men into cocaine. Females are facilitators in mist things men do. Just cannot do without them. They make certain things just so easy as they are never suspects on the radar and allow smooth sailing to take place. Just think about it.
Commenting has been disabled for this item.