Victim of violence wears battle scars every day

With a bullet lodged in the leg since 1980 serving as a daily reminder of how her life suddenly changed in a matter of seconds, Cherline Hoyes has had to painfully navigate Jamaica’s streets with a limp ever since.

The disability has made life tougher for the vendor who sells clothing and other assorted goods along West Street in downtown Kingston.

Even with the Disabilities Act taking effect on February 14, the journey towards equity has only just begun for the estimated nearly 300,000 Jamaicans who have a physical or intellectual disability.

Hoyes, who is in her late 50s, fully understands the stigma that haunts members of the disabled community – the stares and the jeers. And jostling for space to sell on the streets of the capital, with the police tasked with maintaining order, has often led to conflict.

Much of that victimhood, though, she concedes, is linked to personal embarrassment.

It all started on the night of June 26, 1980, in the heights of political foment between the forces of capitalism and socialism and unprecedented violence during a year in which approximately 800 people were murdered.

As she sat in her house in a neighbourhood off Slipe Pen Road, Kingston, that night, she was swarmed by attackers carrying home-made firearms.

When a gunman barged into her home, she fancied her chances at challenging him, thinking the makeshift weapon was low-grade. But he had other cronies.

“When I directly hold up my head, the doorway full o’ gunman,” she said in a Gleaner interview at her stall on Saturday.

She escaped through a window into the backyard of her neighbour but was shot by her assailants.

Amid excruciating pain, Hoyes kept silent in the darkness in a bid to stay alive while she listened to the men discuss their desire to ensure she was dead.

“I directly heard the youth say to him say, ‘I hope you kill har ... ,’ but maybe dem did think say mi dead because mi couldn’t make no sound at the time,” Hoyes said.

Hoyes was taken to the Kingston Public Hospital, where she was treated for about four months. Removing the bullet, which is lodged between two bones in her leg, could have dangerous repercussions, Hoyes said of doctors’ advice.

The vendor has suffered tremendous strain on her leg and lower back over more than four decades, resulting in swollen feet.

She disclosed that early in the struggle with her disability, she often felt embarrassed, causing her to avoid walking in public places to avoid the gaze of passers-by.

“If I’m walking and somebody looking at me, me nuh bother walk again. Mi siddung and mi will cry,” she said.

“... Them time deh ... mi did bitter! Because mi did just ignorant fi everybody, so mi nuh wah nobody look pon me dem time deh,” she remarked.

That apprehension and shame has retreated over time as she gained self-confidence and received affirmation from fellow disabled Jamaicans who formed a strong support group.

The group has formed both a support system and a shield for her from the scornful eyes of discrimination.

Hoyes’ limp has hampered her mobility in making a sustainable livelihood, with the domino effect hurting rental and other expenses.

She is pleading with the police, who are often at loggerheads with vendors because of infractions, to be more respectful in their interactions with higglers.

Members of the police force who would typically conduct an inspection of the various spaces and confiscate vendors selling items unlawfully in no vending areas have discriminated against her, she explained.

Threatening to kick her basket over and speaking to her with disrespect.

“Me want them understand say we are human also. The same God weh mek them a the same God weh create we,” she said, noting that some officers are nicer while others operate as bullies.

“Is a honest bread we a look. We nah rob nobody, we nah tief nobody. Mek me tell you, in this society, them handle, especially the disabled like a piece a rubbish ... like we are nobody,” she said.

Hoyes pleads with law enforcers to be gentler with the disabled community given that they are trying their best to sustain themselves.

In 2013, Hoyes, a self-confessed Christian, said she has now overcome her struggle with bitterness and resentment, causing her, she said, to be more forgiving of discriminatory Jamaicans.

Hoyes is encouraging the public to show more regard for the disabled community.

“Treat us better, give us love. That’s all we want ... . You don’t know what can happen to you. Me never born how me a walk,” she said.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com