In a Jamaica Observer article on violence against women Margarette May Macaulay stresses the importance of “legislation to deal specifically with what really is a scourge in every society”. The Observer also reports on Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller’s recent remarks about gender-based violence, given as part of an address to a national consultation on “Women, Change and Development: Charting the way forward”. The Jamaica Gleaner offers some coverage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women as well, but I think the article’s closing request for readers to submit answers to the questions “what would drive you to kill your partner?” and “what do you think would drive a man to kill his partner?” is in poor taste and not at all in the spirit of the 16 days*.
In June of this year Amnesty International published Just a Little Sex, an article about sexual violence against women and girls in Jamaica. The Panos Institute of the Caribbean has published the report Against Her Will: a situational analysis of rape in Jamaica (PDF document).