T&T is once again be­ing forced to reck­on with the bru­tal truth of gen­der-based vi­o­lence—not as an ab­stract con­cept or a talk­ing point at­tached to an in­ter­na­tion­al ob­ser­vance, but as a se­ries of lives vi­o­lent­ly cut short.

As the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vi­o­lence Against Women is ob­served to­day, this coun­try is forced to ac­knowl­edge the names and sto­ries of women and girls whose deaths re­veal how deeply root­ed, wide­spread, and rapid­ly es­ca­lat­ing this cri­sis has be­come.

Tara “Gee­ta” Ram­sa­roop and her 14-month-old daugh­ter Ja­da Mooti­lal, slaugh­tered in Bar­rack­pore.

Lau­ra Sankar, chopped to death in front of her teenage son in New Grant.

Suni­ta Mo­hammed died af­ter a do­mes­tic dis­pute in Gas­par­il­lo.

Shameia Went, beat­en to death months af­ter leav­ing a safe house.

Nike­sha Sandy, gunned down on her way to work in To­ba­go.

Dur­patee Chance, a 64-year-old grand­moth­er stran­gled in her Moru­ga home.

Sa­van­na Dy­er, shot in the head and dumped in Carlsen Field.

Can­dice Hon­oré, dis­mem­bered and dis­card­ed in a pond.

These are just some of the vic­tims of gen­der-based vi­o­lence with­in the past year. These are not iso­lat­ed in­ci­dents. They form a dis­turb­ing pat­tern of cru­el­ty that mir­rors the na­tion­al trend: ris­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports, over­whelmed shel­ters, trau­ma­tised fam­i­lies, stalled court process­es and a po­lice sys­tem stretched to its lim­its.

Gen­der-based vi­o­lence in T&T is no longer a “pri­vate mat­ter” or a trag­ic se­ries of un­re­lat­ed crimes. It is a pub­lic health emer­gency, a hu­man rights cri­sis and a pro­found so­cial fail­ure.

Ex­perts have long warned that eco­nom­ic stress, the pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal firearms, cul­tur­al norms that ex­cuse male ag­gres­sion and chron­ic in­sti­tu­tion­al weak­ness­es fu­el the vi­o­lence. Sur­vivors who seek help of­ten face de­layed po­lice re­sponse, lim­it­ed shel­ter space, fear of re­tal­i­a­tion and a le­gal sys­tem too slow to of­fer pro­tec­tion.

A so­ci­ety can­not claim to val­ue women while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ac­cept­ing the rou­tine slaugh­ter of moth­ers, daugh­ters, stu­dents, re­tirees and even in­fants.

In re­cent years, ef­forts have been made to strength­en leg­is­la­tion and ex­pand gen­der-based units with­in the TTPS. But leg­is­la­tion with­out en­force­ment, and pol­i­cy with­out re­sources, will not stop the blood­shed. NGOs on the front lines — Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety, Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, safe hous­es across the coun­try— con­tin­ue to op­er­ate on small bud­gets and hero­ic vol­un­teerism. They can­not car­ry this bur­den alone.

To “in­vest to pre­vent vi­o­lence,” as this year’s UN theme urges, re­quires in­vest­ment that is sus­tained, strate­gic, and mea­sur­able.

This coun­try must shift from re­act­ing to mur­ders to pre­vent­ing them.

That means com­pre­hen­sive ed­u­ca­tion on re­spect, con­sent and con­flict res­o­lu­tion in every school; re­li­able, con­fi­den­tial re­port­ing sys­tems; ad­e­quate fund­ing for shel­ters and tran­si­tion­al hous­ing; swift, cer­tain ac­count­abil­i­ty for abusers; eco­nom­ic op­tions for women trapped in vi­o­lent house­holds; and com­mu­ni­ty net­works so no woman feels she is fac­ing dan­ger alone.

Every mur­der sends rip­ples through a com­mu­ni­ty: trau­ma­tised chil­dren, griev­ing fam­i­lies, lost work­ers, fear­ful neigh­bours. Vi­o­lence frac­tures the na­tion­al fab­ric, mak­ing T&T less safe, less pros­per­ous and less hu­mane.

The ques­tion now is sim­ple and ur­gent: How many more names will be added to the list be­fore ac­tion is tak­en with the se­ri­ous­ness this cri­sis de­mands?

On this day of glob­al re­flec­tion, T&T must con­front an un­com­fort­able truth:

Gen­der-based vi­o­lence is pre­ventable — if on­ly our na­tion had the courage to treat it like the emer­gency it is.