The murder of women and children warrants a ‘national intervention’

Dear Editor,
With 11 women murdered and several nursing chop wounds the virus called domestic violence continues to ravage Guyanese women and children, Mr Andrew Hicks, a sociologist and myself a clinical social work practitioner, have posited that “It is time to treat Domestic Violence as a public health challenge (Sunday Stabroek  June 17, 2012).

Recently the former Speaker, Mr Ralph Ramkarran has rightly posited that domestic violence is now a national emergency, and I wholly concur with his reasoning. The continuous murder and maiming of women and children warrants a “national intervention’ with every citizen of Guyana being involved; there can be no sitting on the fence because as a nation we are already over the edge as it relates to intimate partner violence. As a survivor of intimate partner violence I bemoan the impotency of the 1996 DV Act that has not served its purpose and continues to be an irrelevant piece of legislation in 2013. No more can we continue to function as a ‘normal’ society and debate hydropower while women and children suffer the brute force and ignorance of violent men.

Yours faithfully,
Nicole Cole