Pep­per spray should be eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble to women and girls with­out ex­ces­sive­ly pro­hib­i­tive con­di­tions - in­clud­ing re­gard­ing per­mits - which might make the wait for the pro­tec­tion long and jeop­ar­dise ap­pli­cants who have ur­gent need of pro­tec­tion.

This is the view of “We The Peo­ple” ac­tivist and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Star­lite Group of Com­pa­nies, Ger­ald Aboud.

Gov­ern­ment re­cent­ly an­nounced that the spray will be ap­proved as pro­tec­tion. It will be used in a reg­u­lat­ed frame­work re­quir­ing a per­mit. Pro­pos­als will go to Cab­i­net on Thurs­day.

We The Peo­ple (WTP) in­volves mem­bers of non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions and re­li­gious groups.

Aboud said the group gives voice to those who have none. WTP had been ex­am­in­ing is­sues in T&T over time and ear­li­er this month launched a dig­i­tal pe­ti­tion ap­peal­ing for pep­per spray use and of­fer­ing oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions - in­clud­ing on trans­port - to im­prove peo­ples’ lives.

While pep­per spray calls were heed­ed, he said in view of the down­ward spi­ralling econ­o­my much more must be done.

“What’s the plan? We haven’t seen or felt much be­yond shift­ing be­tween COVID han­dling. More and more are falling vic­tim to var­i­ous sit­u­a­tions in T&T’s cir­cum­stances.”

“What we saw re­cent­ly with peo­ple emerg­ing is a sign of their feel­ings. It’s ex­ist­ed for years and is a sign of T&T’s slow de­cline. Both po­lit­i­cal sides must know this.”

WTP was out­side of Par­lia­ment re­cent­ly de­mand­ing jus­tice for vic­tims of crimes fol­low­ing the mur­der of Ari­ma court clerk An­drea Bharatt.

The group ar­rived af­ter po­lice had ear­li­er told oth­er pro­tes­tors to stand be­hind the fence in Wood­ford Square. Aboud and an­oth­er man were de­tained by po­lice while demon­strat­ing on the pave­ment op­po­site Par­lia­ment. The two were lat­er re­leased.

On the pep­per spray is­sue, Aboud said, “Hope­ful­ly the con­di­tions to ob­tain pro­tec­tion wouldn’t be oner­ous enough to pre­vent women and girls from eas­i­ly get­ting the pro­tec­tion. If the per­son feels their life is in im­me­di­ate risk, will per­mit ap­pli­ca­tion time re­move the de­vice’s con­ve­nience fac­tor and re­duce the ef­fec­tive­ness of get­ting the spray on time? It might.”

“When a woman needs the pep­per spray im­me­di­ate­ly will she have ac­cess to it and how easy will it be to ac­tu­al­ly get the per­mit, time be­ing a fac­tor? These are crit­i­cal ques­tions.”

He point­ed out that the spray can al­so boost T&T’s pep­per in­dus­try and make T&T a re­gion­al source for pep­per spray man­u­fac­ture. Gail Alexan­der