T&T can’t af­ford to for­get the women whose lives have been snuffed out or the hor­rif­ic cir­cum­stances of their deaths.

Abi­o­la Cud­joe, 31, was mur­dered along with her 12-year-old son Levi at their home on La­choos Road, Pe­nal.

Ellen Tr­is­hana Mo­hammed, 25, was hacked to death at her home in Guayagua­yare.

Sharsa David, 47, was killed by her com­mon-law hus­band Kester Williams, who then shot him­self at their Hi­bis­cus Dri­ve Ex­ten­sion, Ed­in­burgh 500 home.

Omatie Ram­di­al-De­o­bar­ran, 36, was mur­dered by her school­teacher hus­band Amar De­o­bar­ran, who then took his own life at their South Oropouche Trace, Bar­rack­pore home.

The names of these women and the hun­dreds of oth­ers slaugh­tered over the years by their in­ti­mate part­ners are re­minders of the fail­ure of sys­tems and in­sti­tu­tions in this coun­try that should have kept them safe.

On pa­per, there are suf­fi­cient mea­sures for a ro­bust re­sponse to gen­der-based vi­o­lence. The Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act, which came in­to ef­fect in Au­gust 1991 and was amend­ed as re­cent­ly as 2019, is in­tend­ed to pro­vide ur­gent pro­tec­tion to peo­ple who are be­ing abused. Since ear­ly 2020, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has al­so had a Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit that fo­cus­es on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es and breach­es of re­strain­ing or­ders.

In ad­di­tion, with­in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, there is a Gen­der and Child Af­fairs Unit re­spon­si­ble for de­sign­ing, im­ple­ment­ing and ex­e­cut­ing pro­grammes to ad­dress do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

But what looks promis­ing on pa­per is com­plete­ly at odds with the hor­ri­fy­ing re­al­i­ty of women be­ing killed, even when they try to ac­cess the fa­cil­i­ties that should pro­vide safe­ty.

Rel­a­tives of Ellen Tr­is­hana Mo­hammed, who was al­most de­cap­i­tat­ed in a vi­cious cut­lass at­tack on Wednes­day, said they re­port­ed to the po­lice that she was be­ing abused by a man who had threat­ened to kill her. They claimed po­lice re­spond­ed on­ly af­ter she was killed.

Abi­o­la Cud­joe and her son were killed days af­ter she ob­tained a pro­tec­tion or­der against her abuser. She is among the more than 25 women killed since 2019 af­ter they ap­plied for a pro­tec­tion or­der.

The sys­tem has failed these women in the worst pos­si­ble way. They were not safe in their homes—in all the cas­es cit­ed above, that is where they were slaugh­tered—and the fa­cil­i­ties that should have pro­vid­ed pro­tec­tion did not shield them from their mur­der­ers.

It is un­ac­cept­able that pro­tec­tion or­ders are not worth the pa­per they are writ­ten on, and a spe­cialised law en­force­ment unit is so lim­it­ed in its ca­pac­i­ty to deal with per­pe­tra­tors of abuse. If this cri­sis isn’t prop­er­ly ad­dressed, the coun­try will con­tin­ue to be buf­fet­ed by the neg­a­tive ef­fects of gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

When women are killed by their abusers, they are just the most vis­i­ble of the vic­tims of that crime. There are those they leave be­hind in bro­ken fam­i­lies, in­clud­ing or­phaned chil­dren fac­ing life­long health and de­vel­op­men­tal prob­lems.

All those de­spair­ing over the cur­rent state of the coun­try, par­tic­u­lar­ly the es­ca­lat­ing lev­els of vi­o­lence, should be con­cerned about the mul­ti­pli­er ef­fect of this cri­sis. That in­cludes Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who de­scribed the crime sit­u­a­tion as “un­usu­al­ly hor­ren­dous” when he spoke at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

It is not enough to ex­press con­cern. It is time to own up to these fail­ures and come up with vi­able so­lu­tions.