A NEW organization dedicated to fighting against the prevalence of child molestation, rape and incest in St Lucia, has been launched here.
It is headed by former police officer Norbert Williams who was until recently associated with another organization Zandoli International Foundation which had a similar agenda.
Williams held a press conference in Constitution Park yesterday to announce the new grouping to be known as Speak out St Lucia or SOS. He also announced the names of a number of “selected representatives” of the management team of SOS residing in Saint Lucia, Toronto, (Canada), London, (England); and New York/New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, in the United States.
“These individuals have proven to be concerned and patriotic citizens of our beloved island of Saint Lucia. The management team comprises nine loyal Saint Lucian citizens”.
These include: Angel Regis-Felix (Pennsylvania), who has 20 years of telecommunications experience, and is also president of the Philadelphia Chapter of Women Entrepreneurs of America (WEA., She is also its international ambassador; Dalkeith “Dalla” Charlemagne (London, England), National football player and regularly involved with the Saint Lucia UK community; Julietta Williams (Toronto, Canada), former Brand Manager at Peter and Company, and former employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Saint Lucia; Samantha Mathurin (Atlanta, Georgia), former prosecutor at the office of the Attorney General in the US Virgin Islands, also working with domestic violence victims and juvenile affairs. Currently residing in Atlanta, GA and works in Social Services there, Vina Frederick (Castries, Saint Lucia), former journalist and mass communications specialist.
Williams himself is a former member of the St. Lucia Cadet Corps, Saint Lucia Customs, Royal St. Lucia Police Force, having worked in the Immigration and other departments. He has had 19 years of experience as an Information Systems professional.
Three “Support Volunteers” were also announced: Erene Charlemagne (Saint Lucia) former Saint Lucia carnival queen and carnival band owner; Rachael Cassius (Saint Lucia), Business entrepreneur and Veronica Nicholas (NY/NJ metro area) who has had many years of legal services experience.
Explaining the decision to hold the press conference in Constitution Park, Williams said he had chosen the location with the House of parliament in the background for its symbolism. “That we must be aware that any new laws, amendments, or repeal of obsolete laws, will occur in this building behind me. It must also be noted that the persons who will effect these changes in the interest of the people shall be their duly elected representatives. For decades we have been plagued with the scourge of child molestation, rape, and incest in Saint Lucia.”
He said he had been championing the cause for justice for the victims of child molestation and rape in Saint Lucia and had found it necessary to form his own organization to continue this work.
Said Williams: “It is critical that we continue the discussion of these crimes as they affect our people in many ways and the repercussions are many. Very often the victims suffer in silence with a multitude of problems affecting their relationships, jobs, children, education, sanity, and other aspects of their lives.
“Over the course of my advocacy against these crimes during the past two years, I have heard many stories from victims at home in Saint Lucia and around the world. What has surprised me is the large number of these victims who now reside overseas and most claim they had to run out of Saint Lucia because of shame, guilt, embarrassment, victimization, and threats from their perpetrators. Many lamented the poor state of the judicial system and the almost nonexistent support services available”.
He said last week’s presentation of the petition for a Sex Offender Registry to the government of Saint Lucia expresses the frustration and overwhelming concern of Saint Lucians from all walks of life with regards to these crimes.
Williams added: “With so many rapes being reported in just the past few months, and the significant rise in statistics released by the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force for sex crimes in 2015 we need every weapon in our arsenal of options to fight against these crimes”.
You look ridiculous with that Bow-Tie, but you are on a good trip with that message.
Carry on my friend, wish you lots of success.
I grew remembering certain golden rules that were instilled in me, us at a young age. Sleep with dogs and wake up with fleas. Live in an abusive home you will more than likely become an abusive person. Grow up in an alcoholic home one would likely abuse alcohol. These were logical statements that had proven themselves to be true over time. Now intellectuals are scratching their heads and are pretending to be clueless as to the cause for the rise in rape and murder cases. What really , really irks me is the false pretenses of not knowing the root and obvious causes for the rise in numbers of these acts of violence. These behavioral patterns that causes these reactions are constantly being fed to the public by the media. Over time, like the other previous situations mentioned, people begin to live out these situations. We are constantly fed with acts of violence by the media on a twenty four hour period. They go out of their way to gather such acts of violence which using a simply disclaimer in reminding us of possible graphic nature of its content. We have sexual acts that are deviant to normal behavior being fed to our kids of all ages on a twenty four basis. We now claim these behaviors to be normal. Our great ancestors probably wrote those cautionary behavioral patterns based on real life situations and offered their findings as guidance. Now intellectuals sit idle, claim to be consehensious responsible thinking humans, yet I fail to see any one of them standing up and openly denouncing these sick experiments that are being conducted on humans, openly and no one seem to be aware these situations being in our very midst. Situations that have proven to result in deadly consequences. Documented. Now that to me is what I would call twisted.