PM urges St Mary residents to take personal responsibility in resolving domestic disputes

Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has urged residents of St Mary to take increased personal responsibility in fostering the peaceful resolution of domestic disputes.

Holness noted that while there has been a welcomed 40 per cent reduction in murders in the parish, there is still a significant level of social and family violence, which does not necessarily lead to physical harm or death but is causing serious mental health trauma, the separation of families, and ultimately contributes to homelessness in Jamaica.

“Violence within the family is separating households, dislodging people from their houses, and creating, in effect, a homeless crisis,” he said. 

Holness was speaking at the handing over of a social housing unit to a household displaced by family violence and domestic disputes in Gayle, St Mary.

He noted that more than 300 units are under construction or have been delivered to beneficiaries of the New Social Housing Programme, many of whom are victims of domestic violence or spousal abuse leading to homelessness.

“Under this programme, we have seen persons dispossessed of their housing not only because of catastrophes such as weather events or fire, but we have seen situations of arson, we have seen situations of domestic abuse, where intimate partner violence has caused people to flee their homes, and we have seen situations of domestic disputes, disputes between families, which have caused households to separate and members of the household to become homeless.”

A 2016 Women's Health Survey, commissioned by UN Women in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), reveals that approximately one in four Jamaican women has experienced intimate partner violence during her lifetime.

The Prime Minister further stressed the importance of Jamaicans taking personal responsibility for the levels of violence within their families, communities, and society.

“Because the impact of violence is not just the physical hurt that people may feel; it also causes great emotional distress,” he said.

“Like poverty, emotional pain is transmitted intergenerationally.”

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