SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

From 2010 to 2024, there were 33,489 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence po­lice re­ports, ac­cord­ing to da­ta from the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice (CSO).

A break­down of the fig­ures showed that of the 33,489 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports record­ed, 17,189 were for “as­sault by beat­ing,” which ac­count­ed for 51.3 per cent.

For the same pe­ri­od, there were 443 mur­ders/sui­cides, with the high­est doc­u­ment­ed num­ber be­ing 43 cas­es in 2017 and the low­est be­ing 15 cas­es in 2015.

From Jan­u­ary 1 to April 8, more than a dozen women have been mur­dered in T&T this year.

The mur­ders/sui­cides were just one of 11 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence of­fences list­ed on the CSO’s web­site, pro­vid­ed by the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) Branch of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

The list pro­vid­ed da­ta on mur­ders/homi­cides, sex­u­al abuse, wound­ing with in­tent, as­sault by beat­ing, ma­li­cious dam­age, threats, ver­bal abuse, breach of pro­tec­tion or­der, child abuse and aban­don­ment, fi­nan­cial abuse and oth­er emo­tion­al/psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse.

Ac­cord­ing to the da­ta, the high­est num­ber of re­ports that po­lice re­ceived was for “as­sault by beat­ing”. In 2023, that num­ber was 2,646 re­ports, the high­est record­ed fig­ure in the 15 years. The year 2019 had the fewest re­ports of 477.

The sec­ond-high­est num­ber of re­ports were for “threats”. A to­tal of 8,935 “threats” were re­port­ed to the po­lice, the sec­ond-high­est fig­ure or 26.7 per cent of the over­all re­ports made. Of this fig­ure, the largest num­ber of “threats” reg­is­tered was 1,464 in 2023. The least was 235 in 2019.

And the third-high­est num­ber of re­ports made was for “breach of pro­tec­tion or­ders”, which stood at 2,423. The high­est “breach of pro­tec­tion or­ders” re­port­ed to the po­lice was 281 in 2023. The low­est num­ber was 88 in 2019.

Rank­ing fourth on the of­fences list was “sex­u­al abuse,” which had 877 re­ports. The da­ta showed that for the year 2019, there were no re­ports of sex­u­al abuse. For 2020 and 2021, there were 12 com­bined re­ports. By 2022, the fig­ure bal­looned to 100 and then sky­rock­et­ed to 293 in 2023.

The sta­tis­tics al­so re­vealed that “ma­li­cious dam­age” ac­count­ed for 866 of the en­tire re­port­ed fig­ure, while there were 773 “ver­bal abuse” and 769 “wound­ing with in­tent” re­ports made to the po­lice from 2010 to 2024.

Pat­tern of vi­o­lence

against women

The da­ta comes against the back­drop of a chill­ing wave of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es sweep­ing the land in the last few months, which has been paint­ing a grim pic­ture of ris­ing crime in the coun­try.

Ear­ly last year, the coun­try faced a surge of vi­o­lence as eight women were bru­tal­ly mur­dered in home in­va­sions, do­mes­tic dis­putes and stray bul­let shoot­ings.

These mur­ders oc­curred un­der a State of Emer­gency (SoE), which be­gan un­der the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment.

The blood­shed start­ed on Jan­u­ary 9 last year, when at­tor­ney Ku­mari Baksh, 60, and her hus­band Nasheed were found bound, gagged, and mur­dered in their Cu­mu­to home fol­low­ing a bru­tal home in­va­sion. Days lat­er, Onel­la An­to­nia Parks, 34, was am­bushed and gunned down while walk­ing to work in Port-of-Spain. Sahri­da Ali was hit by a stray bul­let dur­ing a shootout be­tween po­lice and crim­i­nals on Jan­u­ary 18.

On Jan­u­ary 26, Suni­ta Par­ba­tee Ram, 56, was gunned down by her hus­band, Michael Ram, in yet an­oth­er trag­ic case of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at their Williamsville home.

Less than 24 hours lat­er, on Jan­u­ary 27, 57-year-old Wendy Thomas was shot in the chest af­ter a heat­ed ar­gu­ment with a man at her Princes Town home.

Two days lat­er, Chez­er­ae Kid­ney-Ram­dass,39, was shot in her Pleas­antville apart­ment on Jan­u­ary 29.

On Feb­ru­ary 16, Quintin Mar­cano, 65, was fa­tal­ly struck by a bul­let while at a friend’s birth­day par­ty in Pe­nal.

Among the vic­tims was 64-year-old Dur­patee Chance, who was beat­en and stran­gled af­ter masked in­trud­ers stormed her St Mary’s Vil­lage home last Feb­ru­ary.

The pat­tern of vi­o­lence con­tin­ued while the coun­try was un­der a new SoE by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion and even rolled in­to 2026, with 13 women los­ing their lives in 98 days.

Last Wednes­day, cit­i­zens woke up to the shock­ing news that a Vista­bel­la woman who claimed to have en­dured more than six hours of al­leged abuse and ter­ror had shot and killed Steve Ghany, 37, in­side their home.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were told that Ghany re­turned home, and an ar­gu­ment over al­leged in­fi­deli­ty erupt­ed.

In a re­port to the po­lice, the woman claimed that Ghany threat­ened to kill her and her two daugh­ters, and she act­ed in self-de­fence.

As of April 10, 2026, the TTPS record­ed 98 mur­ders.

There were 361 mur­ders last year, with 30 women among the vic­tims.

Last Ju­ly, the pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Re­source Net­work (IWRN), Adri­ana San­drine Isaac-Rat­tan, made an ur­gent ap­peal to the State for ac­tion, fol­low­ing what she de­scribed as an un­prece­dent­ed spate of bru­tal mur­ders tar­get­ing women in T&T.

Isaac-Rat­tan re­vealed that from Jan­u­ary to Ju­ly 17, 2025, 26 women have been killed—many in hor­ri­fy­ing cir­cum­stances.

She told Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk on Fri­day that, based on IWRN’s da­ta, 30 women were mur­dered at the end of 2025.

She said many vic­tims ig­nore the ear­ly signs of abuse and con­tin­ue in the re­la­tion­ship.

“In­di­vid­u­als need to pay at­ten­tion ear­ly and take de­ci­sive ac­tion. Many of them use sex as a heal­er, and that is a no-no.”

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der al­so ap­pealed to women to be care­ful when us­ing so­cial me­dia.

The UNC Gov­ern­ment was al­so struck to the core last No­vem­ber when Siparia East/ San Fran­cique South coun­cil­lor, Romona Vic­tor and her hus­band, Rod­ney Ram­sumair, were found dead in their Siparia home in what po­lice sus­pect may have been a mur­der-sui­cide.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ad­dressed mourn­ers at Vic­tor’s fu­ner­al ser­vice, reaf­firmed her com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies in cri­sis.

“Her sto­ry serves as a re­minder that no one should en­dure their pain in si­lence, and help must be ac­ces­si­ble to any­one who feels un­safe. As your Prime Min­is­ter, I reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to strength­en­ing the sys­tems that pro­tect fam­i­lies in dis­tress. But the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty al­so lies with all of us—neigh­bours, rel­a­tives, friends, and every car­ing in­di­vid­ual. Let one part of her lega­cy be this: more peo­ple should reach out for help, and more of us should re­spond with com­pas­sion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“Scary” es­ca­la­tion

Vi­o­lence pre­ven­tion spe­cial­ist Kevin Liv­er­pool, who sup­ports men­tor­ship pro­grammes for boys across the Caribbean, de­scribed the es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence against women as “scary.”

He said the da­ta does not tell the full sto­ry of the vi­o­lence women and girls ex­pe­ri­enced in T&T.

“What we’re see­ing in the da­ta is usu­al­ly the ex­treme-end cas­es of phys­i­cal abuse, rape and even femi­cide. What it miss­es is the every­day re­al­i­ty of cat calls, sex­ist and rape jokes, work­place ha­rass­ment, stalk­ing, on­line abuse and con­trol­ling be­hav­iours from part­ners.”

These forms of vi­o­lence, Liv­er­pool said, are con­stant and of­ten go un­re­port­ed.

“I’m con­cerned about what’s show­ing up in the da­ta. But I am more con­cerned about what isn’t.”

Liv­er­pool said a sys­tem ap­proach was need­ed to ad­dress vi­o­lence against women and girls.

He said that while many or­gan­i­sa­tions are do­ing im­por­tant work in re­search, ad­vo­ca­cy, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and di­rect sup­port for sur­vivors, “the prob­lem is with­out a well-re­sourced na­tion­al frame­work, all this work re­mains frag­ment­ed.”

Liv­er­pool point­ed out that it was the State’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to bring this to­geth­er and work in part­ner­ship with civ­il so­ci­ety to build and fund a co­he­sive na­tion­al re­sponse.

Con­di­tions al­so have to be cre­at­ed where boys can grow up to be kind, cry with­out shame and play freely and not be po­liced in­to nar­row ideas of mas­culin­i­ty.

“We al­so need spaces where men and boys can come to­geth­er for re­flec­tion, heal­ing and bond­ing. These spaces should be prop­er­ly re­sourced and scaled if we’re se­ri­ous about long-term change.”

Liv­er­pool said many of the coun­try’s in­sti­tu­tions still op­er­ate from a place of vic­tim-blam­ing.

“A vic­tim-blam­ing mind­set treats do­mes­tic vi­o­lence like an in­con­ve­nience or some­thing that on­ly hap­pens to peo­ple who are poor or un­e­d­u­cat­ed. Vi­o­lence cuts across every lev­el of so­ci­ety. It’s a sys­tem­at­ic is­sue, mean­ing it is pro­duced and sus­tained by norms, in­sti­tu­tions, and pow­er struc­tures around us.”

Re­gard­ing jus­tice for the vic­tims, Liv­er­pool said sad­ly, jus­tice has been in­con­sis­tent and of­ten “too late in T&T right now. In too many cas­es, it on­ly shows up af­ter a woman has al­ready been killed, and even then, it’s re­duced to one tri­al, one per­pe­tra­tor and one out­come. But jus­tice can­not be what hap­pens in a court­room af­ter the fact.”

“So when we ask where is jus­tice?...the un­com­fort­able but hope­ful an­swer is... that we are still build­ing it. And un­til we treat pre­ven­tion and pro­tec­tion as a pun­ish­ment, jus­tice will keep ar­riv­ing af­ter the harm is al­ready done.”

He said re­al jus­tice has to in­clude pre­ven­tion, a sys­tem that picks up risk ear­ly, pro­tec­tion that re­sponds in time and ser­vices that don’t dis­miss or min­imise warn­ing signs.

Ma­habir-Wy­att: Get­ting worse

Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att, one of the founders of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV), said vi­o­lence against women “is just get­ting worse. It’s ap­palling.”

She said CADV worked hard to get mul­ti­ple changes to the law to help vul­ner­a­ble women.

“While we thought that if we changed the laws, we would change the num­ber of mur­ders of women in T&T. But we changed the laws, and the num­ber of mur­ders of women con­tin­ues to climb. There is no equal­i­ty for women in Trinidad. What hap­pens is if you point out that, every­body says that your Pres­i­dent is a woman, your Prime Min­is­ter is a woman.”

She said that while the laws were re­draft­ed, “there has been no change to what is hap­pen­ing in so­ci­ety and prac­ti­cal life.”

Ma­habir-Wy­att said T&T prob­a­bly has the high­est sta­tis­tics of women be­ing mur­dered in do­mes­tic cir­cum­stances in the Caribbean.

“We have ap­par­ent­ly great­ly out­passed Ja­maica.”

Mat­ters in court

The Ju­di­cia­ry 2020/2021 an­nu­al re­port stat­ed that 1,089 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ters were filed in the Port-of-Spain (835), Princes Town (194) and To­ba­go (69) courts for the 2020/2021 pe­ri­od.

Of this fig­ure, 209 mat­ters were de­ter­mined, which rep­re­sent­ed a 19 per cent clear­ance rate.

The re­port stat­ed that 868 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ters were pend­ing in the Port-of-Spain, Princes Town and To­ba­go courts as of Ju­ly 31, 2021.

Port-of-Spain had the high­est pend­ing mat­ters of 597, fol­lowed by Princes Town with 192 and 79 in To­ba­go.

It al­so stat­ed that 140 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ters were filed in the 2019/2020 pe­ri­od.

Women mur­dered in 2026

Nan­cy Al­mar­ales, 50, was shot and killed in­side her ve­hi­cle on the Va­len­cia Old Road on Jan­u­ary 4.

The body of a home­less woman was dis­cov­ered be­neath a bridge near Ed­die Hart Grounds in Tacarigua on Jan­u­ary 21. Her body bore mul­ti­ple chop wounds.

Anais Lopez, 27, was gunned down while sit­ting un­der a shed at Gar­den Road, Windy Hill, Arou­ca, on Jan­u­ary 21.

Rio Claro moth­er, Kellyann Lemessy, was am­bushed and fa­tal­ly shot in her car at the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road on Jan­u­ary 22.

De­vot­ed church­go­er Mer­ril Sabass­er, 65, was found dead at her Pa­pourie Road, Bar­rack­pore home on Jan­u­ary 25, fol­low­ing a home in­va­sion. A post-mortem con­firmed the pen­sion­er was beat­en and stran­gled to death.

Work­ers clear­ing bush­es along the M2 Ring Road in La Ro­maine on Feb­ru­ary 12 stum­bled up­on a mu­ti­lat­ed fe­male body. The His­pan­ic woman’s right arm was sev­ered at the el­bow. Her left arm was par­tial­ly sev­ered. The miss­ing limb was not found at the scene.

On Feb­ru­ary 13, Am­i­ly Her­nan­dez and her boyfriend, De­vaughn Tou­s­saint, were gunned down out­side their Jade Court, Cou­va, home me­tres from a play­park.

Po­lice were alert­ed by res­i­dents of a par­tial­ly de­com­posed body float­ing in the sea near Blenheim Bay, To­ba­go, on March 3. The de­ceased, iden­ti­fied as Sta­cy Sama­roo, 36, had a rope wrapped around her neck. Po­lice sus­pect­ed foul play.

March 17, pro­fes­sion­al crick­eter Resh­mi De­owa­jit, 28, was found stabbed to death at her Ce­dros home.

March 26, 25-year-old Adri­ana Her­nan­dez was one of four peo­ple shot on David Street, Bel­mont.

Oni­ka Tin­isha Lo­cario’s body was dis­cov­ered along the North Coast Road on April 1. An au­top­sy showed that Lo­cario died as a re­sult of blunt force trau­ma to the head.

The body of Mau­reen Os­borne, 69, was found on a par­cel of land in Manuel Con­go, Ari­ma, on April 3, ten days af­ter she was re­port­ed miss­ing. Res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty re­port­ed hear­ing screams com­ing from the land two days be­fore Os­borne’s body was found. Os­borne’s fam­i­ly sus­pect foul play in the death.

On April 8, the own­er of T’s Tasty Treats, Tri­cia Ma­haraj, was shot by gun­men at River­side Road, Curepe.