Simms: 'Very frightening'MANY WOMEN have not escaped the clutches of the crime wave that has engulfed Jamaica in 2004. Figures from the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) reveal that up to July 22, 88 females had been murdered.
Janice Baker, a 24-year-old from Farm Heights in Montego Bay, was the latest female victim. Ms. Baker and a male companion were killed on July 11 by gunmen at the Urban Development Commission's public beach in the resort city.
Glenda Simms, executive director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs, said that the number of women slain is "very frightening. It is obvious that some of the women may be involved in crimes because a lot of them are seen as the property of (bad) men. And their rivals usually say 'if you can't get them get their wives or children'."
The Sunday Gleaner was unable to get data from from the statistics department at the CCN on whether underworld ties, assault or domestic violence accounted for most of the homicides. Some of the murders involving women have been bizarre. In March, three young girls were hacked to death by their machete-wielding uncle in Mount Hybla, St. Andrew.
Their uncle, Caston Haase, was reportedly mentally challenged; he was also chopped to death by residents.
In June, 56 year-old Ena Grant was shot three times by a gunman while she worshipped at the True Faith Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ in Papine, St. Andrew. Six days later, her church sister Jenny O'Reggio, was gunned down at her home in Land Lease district in St. Andrew.
On July 3, 50-year-old Ilene Chin and her husband Winston, operators of a supermarket in Annotto Bay, St. Mary, were murdered by gunmen as they returned to their home in Claremont district in the parish.
No arrests have been made in the Grant and Chin cases.
- H.C.
