The killing of 24-year-old Joy St Omer in May caused widespread outrage in Saint Lucia. But for three young women, it was not enough to just mourn and let the conversation fade away.
Christa McFarlene, Angel Foster, and Hasana Emmanuel started Voices Beyond Violence SLU after St. Omer’s death. Their movement aims to support women and girls, challenge views on gender-based violence, and demand more accountability.
In an interview with St. Lucia Times, McFarlene and Foster shared that Voices Beyond Violence started when they invited people to hold a peaceful vigil outside the Gros Islet Police Station after St Omer’s death.
Women, girls, survivors and other concerned citizens came together in solidarity, mourning St Omer while demanding that her death not simply become another tragedy forgotten with time.
The founders wanted to do more than just hold vigils and mourn.
McFarlene said the movement aims to create a space where people can face the hard truths about violence against women, educate others and call for change together.
“We wanted to take it outside of just coming together and grieving somebody, as we very well should,” she said. “We wanted to make sure that it was a space of education; it was a space for calling out a reality that really should not be existent so rampantly in Saint Lucia.”
Foster said another major objective is to mae sure that women and girls feel safe enough to speak about their experiences and feel that they are being heard.
She pointed to St Omer’s case as one which has fuelled questions about whether women who as for help are truly protected.
“We want to make sure that our movement is creating a space so that women can essentially feel safe in Saint Lucia, to be able to speak out about what their experiences are, speak out about what they’re going through and allow women to be heard,” Foster said.
Since May, new cases of violence against women have added emotional strain to the young movement.
McFarlene acknowledged that activism can be demanding, particularly as the founders juggle their own lives and jobs. However, she stressed that tackling gender-based violence cannot rest solely on activists.
“We’ve had to remind ourselves that we’re trying to create a space and create one certain kind of change in Saint Lucia, but it’s not fully all on our shoulders,” she said.
According to McFarlene, every social media post, march, protest and vigil is meant to support victims and their families and to contribute to a safer future.
Foster said one of the movement’s ultimate objectives is to see femicide recognised more seriously and to reduce the number of women killed.
Both women identified victim blaming as one of the cultural attitudes that must be addressed.
McFarlene suggested that blaming victims can sometimes appear “safer” than confronting alleged perpetrators, particularly where fear is involved.
Foster said society also appears to construct an image of what she described as the “perfect victim”, meaning someone whose actions before or after abuse fit what people expect.
She argued that factors including culture, social status and popularity can influence how victims and alleged perpetrators are treated in public discourse.
The movement has also sought to challenge questions about what a woman was wearing, if she reported abuse, or what she might have done differently.
McFarlene referenced the “just-world” theory, explaining that people sometimes try to explain tragedy by finding something the victim supposedly did to cause what happened.
Although Voices Beyond Violence primarily focuses on women and girls, the co-founders acknowledged that men and boys can also face sexual and other types of violence.
“We recognise that it’s not only women and girls, particularly in sexual violence, in sexual abuse situations,” McFarlene said, while explaining that the movement has deliberately chosen to focus on women and girls.
Even though the movement is only a few months old, Foster believes Voices Beyond Violence has already helped influence the national conversation.
“I have seen that there has been a change in conversation,” she said. “I think now people are putting the pressure on the perpetrator and the abuser and also the system that could be failing these women, girls and victims.”
She pointed particularly to social media, where posts have generated discussion and been widely shared.
Still, Foster is reluctant to describe that progress as success while women continue to lose their lives.
“Voices Beyond Violence won’t stop having that conversation and won’t stop fighting for justice for women, for girls and for victims,” she said.
For McFarlene, one of the movement’s most meaningful achievements has been creating spaces for collective grief and solidarity.
She recalled the vigil held at the location where St Omer died, where people gathered with flowers and candles, sang and shared memories of her.
The response has convinced the co-founders that many Saint Lucians want to see change but need opportunities to get involved.
“We have so many activists in Saint Lucia,” McFarlene said. “We just need the mobilisation.”
