'It's a forever pain, an unfathomable pain': families remember Trinidad's femicide victims Trigger
(Trigger warnings, incredibly painful)
‘It’s a forever pain, an unfathomable pain’: families remember Trinidad’s femicide victims
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Andrea Bharratt, Ashanti Riley, Sharday Emmanuel and Teri Gomez are just a few of the many women missing or murdered on the island in recent years. Their loved ones tell their stories
Andrea Bharatt, 20
After his wife died, Randolph Bharatt wasn’t doing so well. Drinking too much, not sleeping and sinking into depression, Bharatt thought it best his only child go and live with her aunts. “I begged she to go,” he says. “She was 15. That child she said: ‘I ain’t leaving.’ My wife had been six years ill, so it had been hard, but Andrea used that as motivation.
“It was me had to stop being the delinquent. My own mother died when I was nine and I didn’t know parenting. But I went into Andrea’s school and they said: ‘Go home, there is nothing wrong with this one.’ She was getting trophies and certificates.”
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A poster of Andrea, used at one of the vigils, hung by her father, Randolph, in their home. Photograph: Tracy Mcveigh/Tracy McVeigh
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Andrea was abducted, aged 20, after catching a taxi home from Arima magistrates court where she was a clerk, on 29 January 2021. The driver, Joel Balcon, then 36, had more than 70 outstanding criminal charges against him, from rape to robbery. He had connections to at least one other missing woman, but was out on the streets as a result of, depending whose opinion you get in Trinidad, inefficiency or blatant corruption in the justice system.
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As it got dark, her dad repeatedly rang her phone. Eventually, a man answered and threatened to send him the ear of “your pretty daughter”.
“I knew that was it,” said Bharatt. “The way that fella sounded. I knew.”
“Was I worried about her? All the time. Today Trinidad is stinking. Sorry to say. There are demons out there. It used to be very, very rare you heard somebody killed, it would be big news.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jun/16/its-a-forever-pain-an-unfathomable-pain-families-remember-trinidads-femicide-victims