Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son has ap­pealed for a com­pre­hen­sive, na­tion­wide Gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion in re­sponse to ris­ing cas­es of vi­o­lence against women and the deep­en­ing cri­sis of youth in­volve­ment in crime.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Fer­gu­son said he is deeply trou­bled by what he de­scribes as a “dan­ger­ous shift in the coun­try’s moral com­pass.”

“When I watch what’s tak­ing place in our coun­try, it’s burn­ing my heart,” Fer­gu­son said.

“Men killing women over a dis­agree­ment, over some­thing small they don’t like. That can­not be nor­mal.”

Fer­gu­son said he is stunned by the fre­quen­cy of re­cent mur­ders of women.

“For the last two, three weeks, a lot of women get killed and peo­ple act­ing like they not see­ing it,” he added. “We have gone so bad that men killing women more than any­thing else now.”

He stressed that no re­la­tion­ship dis­pute should ever end in vi­o­lence.

Fer­gu­son be­lieves the coun­try needs a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al plan, not scat­tered or short-lived ini­tia­tives.

“We need more ed­u­ca­tion for the men and women about re­la­tion­ships. We not do­ing enough, we just think we are do­ing enough,” he said.

He called for com­pre­hen­sive pro­grammes be­gin­ning in com­mu­ni­ties and ex­tend­ing in­to schools and na­tion­al pol­i­cy.

“The coun­try must have pro­grammes to help out women and men who hav­ing re­la­tion­ship prob­lems. It must not be fly-by-night. It must be a Trinidad and To­ba­go pol­i­cy,” Fer­gu­son said.

He al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of teach­ing young peo­ple how to choose part­ners wise­ly.

Fer­gu­son called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to lis­ten to voic­es from the ground.

“Mrs Prime Min­is­ter, take this ad­vice,” he said.

“Peo­ple ad­vis­ing you have doc­tor­ate de­grees, but I have a doc­tor­ate in the streets.

“I un­der­stand what tak­ing place in the streets. And if we don’t do some­thing in the next two, three weeks, you will see a whole lot of crime. Too many peo­ple un­em­ployed.”

He added that the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate is adding fu­el to the sit­u­a­tion.

Fer­gu­son is call­ing for a na­tion­al youth de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme with mul­ti­ple ca­reer paths. He said every youth leav­ing school should au­to­mat­i­cal­ly have ac­cess to a struc­tured path.

“As they cross 18 and have noth­ing, put them in a na­tion­al pro­gramme. A big pro­gramme, not a small one,” he em­pha­sised.

“Some­thing to keep them off the street.”