Woman's beating goes viral on Net
Published:Tuesday | March 22, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Mark Beckford, Online Content Coordinator
A video on a popular United States website showing a Jamaican man beating a woman has drawn sharp condemnation from two local experts on women's rights.
The video, which up to 6:30 yesterday evening had had more than 170,000 views, is more than six minutes long. The video has gone viral, with more than 10,000 people sharing it on social networking website Facebook in the same time period.
Faith Webster, executive director or the Bureau of Women's Affairs, called the video "disturbing and distressing".
Dorothy Whyte, executive director of the Women's Resource and Outreach Centre (WROC), said she could not watch the video in its entirety due to its content.
"I cannot believe, in this day and age, that a community is condoning violence against this woman," Webster said.
Throughout the graphic video, the incensed man holds the woman and repeatedly hits her in the face and on the body.
The man, who is cheered on by others in the community, also kicks the woman more than once. At one point the woman throws a stone at the man.
At the start of the video, the man is heard cursing the woman for breaking his chain.
At least three times, other members of the unidentified community try to intervene, but that does not stop the fight. The assault finally ends when the victim is dragged away by another woman to her house, while some men in the community hold the enraged man.
Eyewitnesses interviewed
At the end of the beating, the videographer interviews eyewitnesses, and the majority of the respondents, who are mostly men, agree with the beating, saying the woman had been provoking the man.
A teenager smoking a marijuana cigarette is in agreement with the assault.
"Easy she fi easy harself. She na no ears," he says.
Webster said the video makes the efforts of the bureau to eradicate violence harder. She said the community must take responsibility and stand up against such acts.
"Men sat down and went on to say that she was hard of hearing. She does not deserve that. She is a young woman. Where is the protection coming from?" she lamented.
Whyte said it was interesting that most of the participants in the video were young adults. She said it showed that Jamaica has a far way to go to break the scourge of generational violence against women.
"The nerve that he has! She does not deserve that. No one deserves that. It speaks to the level of intelligence in our country," she said.
Both women said public education was the way to snap the trend of violence against women. The bureau said it had released several public-service announcements with artistes such as Tanya Stephens and Tarrus Riley denouncing violence against women, while WROC said it would, in May, start a training programme to resocialise men and women in positive attitudes towards women.