‘Stop the silence’ - Nurses lead Mandeville march to protest violence against women and children
Published:Sunday | January 27, 2019 | 12:00 AM
Spurred into action by the repeated horror stories of violence being perpetrated against women and children, scores of nurses yesterday railed in the Manchester capital, Mandeville, to say enough is enough.
The protesting nurses, along with members of supporting groups, including the Jamaica Fire Brigade, a Rotary Club and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, shouted in unison: “No more violence, stop the silence”.
It is a message they hope will reach across the parish and to the wider Jamaica as they vowed to find added courage to treat with the scourge.
It’s a daunting task, though, as Manchester has been quietly developing an unenviable reputation as a parish with some of the most dreadful high-profile killings of women and children in Jamaica.
Last August, the parish was the scene of one of Jamaica’s most gruesome killings of the year, when the mutilated body of 25-year-old Khyhymn Campbell was found in an igloo inside a parked car along the Winston Jones Highway outside Mandeville.
But still full of hope, the demonstrators had some choice words for those who are set on hurting the nation’s women and children.
“We are sending the message to them that we are out for them. We are going to get them and we are going to ensure that they are punished. Women, especially, have put up with it for too long and I think enough is enough,” said Semoya Miller, a nurse based in central Jamaica.
Miller told The Sunday Gleaner that she is frustrated with women being targeted.
‘Love is not abuse’
The nurses waved signs emblazoned with messages including, ‘Love is not abuse’, ‘No means no’, ‘Family members who perpetrate violence must be named’ as they took the early-morning trek around the town.
As the crowd, consisting of mostly women, paraded through the streets of Mandeville, curious onlookers stopped their normal business as some added quiet conversations of their own.
But some were not so quiet, though, as one man shouted, “Tell the woman dem fi stop give the man dem bun and dem wi live.”
Another man, who was observed making an early-morning sale of oranges, remarked that marches would do little to “turn a man’s wicked heart from evil”. He was adamant that stopping the attacks on women and children “is a miracle that God alone can work”.
But it was that approach by scores of Jamaicans which the demonstrators were trying to fight with their presence and pointed messages.
“We are saying to those people who make up all sorts of excuses for those battering our women and children, there is no excuse for abuse,” said one nurse who did not give her name.
“Too many women die because of that attitude. Too many lose their eyes. Too many get broken limbs. Too many can’t live normal lives because of these excuses. We have to stop it,” added the nurse, who said she worked at a private hospital in Mandeville.
For Joan Brown*, an elderly woman who paused from her errands to observe the proceedings, the demonstration could not have come at a better time.
She told The Sunday Gleaner that she has been agonising over whether to inform the police of a case she is aware of in Knockpatrick, a mainly farming community, 10 minutes outside Mandeville.
“Me glad fi see dem because me go a me bed every night and me a wonder what to do, ’cause a man around where me live a kill him woman wid beating. You would think him keeping school in him bedroom.
“Pure beating she get and me wouldn’t like to know that dem same nurses here haffi pronounce her dead. So me plan to do something,” said Brown as she looked at the parade.
The demonstration was organised by the Nurses’ Association of Jamaica as the first of its two ‘Orange Day’ walks scheduled for this year.
The second walk is planned for March 23 in the Corporate Area.
* Name changed on request.