Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The re­cent mur­ders of Sta­cy Sama­roo and Rashme Deoa­jit have reignit­ed calls from a women’s group for a spe­cial court to ad­dress gen­der-based vi­o­lence in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Asiya Mo­hammed, founder and CEO of Con­flict Women, ex­pressed deep sad­ness over the deaths, not­ing that In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, ob­served on March 8, car­ried the theme “Jus­tice, Ac­tion and Rights.”

“While laws and poli­cies ex­ist, gen­der-based vi­o­lence con­tin­ues to rise,” Mo­hammed said, high­light­ing gaps in en­force­ment and is­sues with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. She urged all stake­hold­ers—in­clud­ing fam­i­lies and loved ones—to treat warn­ing signs se­ri­ous­ly. “When you know some­thing is hap­pen­ing, when you see some­thing hap­pen­ing, please re­port it. Do not suf­fer in si­lence,” she said.

Re­new­ing her call for a ded­i­cat­ed gen­der-based vi­o­lence court, Mo­hammed stressed its im­por­tance in re­duc­ing vic­tim­i­sa­tion and homi­cides. “Cas­es of­ten take years to be heard. Even when sur­vivors re­port to the po­lice, they do not al­ways re­ceive the at­ten­tion, as­sis­tance, and sup­port they re­quire,” she said. She al­so urged men to adopt a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to vi­o­lence and hold peers ac­count­able.

Deputy Siparia May­or Shankar Teelucks­ingh, who al­so serves as Ce­dros coun­cil­lor, called on the pub­lic not to ig­nore signs of do­mes­tic dis­tur­bances and to seek help through rel­a­tives, friends, re­li­gious lead­ers, or avail­able sup­port ser­vices. He ad­vised men to walk away when un­able to con­trol their emo­tions and to seek pro­fes­sion­al sup­port if need­ed. “Walk away, talk to some­one. There are fa­cil­i­ties and coun­sel­lors to help you. Do not feel ashamed,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh, who re­sides in the same com­mu­ni­ty as Deoa­jit, said the Granville area has been plunged in­to grief. “Words can­not ex­press the sor­row I feel over this tragedy and the loss of some­one who rose above her strug­gles and was on the right path in life. She was a role mod­el for young girls.”

He re­called ef­forts to sup­port Deoa­jit while she was in sec­ondary school: through the prin­ci­pal, the lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fice, and the Na­tion­al Self Help Com­mis­sion, a starter home was built and fur­nished with as­sis­tance from vil­lagers and sup­port­ers.

Deoa­jit, 28, of Tat Trace, was last seen on March 16 around 8 pm in an al­ter­ca­tion with a male friend while so­cial­is­ing. Her body was dis­cov­ered the fol­low­ing day around 6.30 pm in her home.

Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs Phillip Watts ex­pressed con­do­lences, of­fer­ing prayers and sup­port to Deoa­jit’s fam­i­ly and the wider com­mu­ni­ty. Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar al­so ex­tend­ed sym­pa­thies, hav­ing planned a vis­it to the fam­i­ly.

Mean­while, Sama­roo’s moth­er, Vashti, said she has no new in­for­ma­tion on her daugh­ter’s case. Sama­roo, 36, a moth­er of one, was found float­ing off Hope, To­ba­go, on March 3. An au­top­sy re­vealed she died from drown­ing, with stran­gu­la­tion al­so a fac­tor. Her fu­ner­al is sched­uled to­day at 8.30 am at her moth­er’s home in Gol­con­da Set­tle­ment, San Fer­nan­do, fol­lowed by cre­ma­tion at the Shore of Peace.

Po­lice have not yet made any ar­rests in con­nec­tion with ei­ther mur­der.