International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed on November 25 each year, arising from a United Nations Resolution in 1999. November 25 was chosen as the date to commemorate the lives of three Mirabel sisters from the Dominican Republic, who were brutally assassinated for their political activism.

Violence against women is on the increase and is a reality that girls and women face in their daily activities. In Jamaica, violence against women is endemic with no cultural, class or religious boundaries. The types of violence include bullying, dating violence, domestic and intimate partner violence, emotional and verbal abuse, human trafficking, sexual assault and abuse and stalking.

State of siege

Stalking literally forces victims to live in fear and in a state of siege. Stalking is a crime that not only affects high-profile persons but ordinary civilians, more so women. Statistics show that women are victims of stalking more than men. The majority of women are usually stalked by former or current intimate partners through physical or sexual assaults. However, strangers who stalk their victims can be just as irritating and deadly as stalkers who are known to their victims. They will use any means, including the Internet, which offers them greater opportunities to hide their identity.

Who is a stalker? This is usually hard to answer as there is no typical stalker, because they exhibit a wide range of behavioural and psychological traits. A stalker may appear as a normal human being with no signs of deviant behaviour. Stalkers, more often men than women, are persons who intentionally or repeatedly follow, watch or try to communicate with another person.

Types of stalkers

According to The Legal Momentum for Advancing Women's Rights, stalkers fall into six categories:

1. The Rejected Stalker pursues an ex-intimate with the desire to reconcile and/or revenge, using strategies to maintain some type of relationship with the victim.

2. The Resentful Stalker seeks retribution by creating fear in someone who the stalker believes may have wronged him/her. The victim could be anyone from a former partner, past teacher or former employer.

3. The Predatory Stalker desires to assault the victim and will carefully plan an attack to do so. Early actions include information gathering and surveillance to carry out the assault.

4. The Intimacy Seeker Stalker desires a romantic relationship with someone he/she admires and becomes fixated on. The strategies include persistent communication, including romantic overtures.

5. The Incompetent Suitor is similar to the intimacy seeker, but has a strong sense of entitlement to a relationship with person of desire.

6. The Erotomanic Stalker is one with a psychological disorder which causes him/her to believe that the victim loves him/her.

Victims of stalking suffer severe consequences, such as change in personality, heightened anxiety, harbouring suicidal thoughts, and physical systems of stress, including inability to sleep, nightmares, depression, weight loss, nausea, exhaustion and headaches. Victims may experience several symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Some victims lose time from work or may never return to the job, relocating to a place where they will feel safe.

If you know someone who is being stalked, listen and be supportive. Stalking is a crime that could affect anyone, so the victim should not be blamed for the crime. An effective response to stalking, as with any other crime, is the involvement of the entire community working together to make victims safer. You can make a difference in the lives of our women who have to evade stalkers considered unpredictable and dangerous.

STALKING CHECKLIST

Stalkers adopt a wide range of behaviours of which women should be aware in case they are being stalked. Stalkers will:

Follow you and show up wherever you are.

Damage your home, car, or other property.

Repeatedly call you on the telephone, including hang-ups.

Send unwanted gifts, flowers, cards, letters and emails.

Use technology, like hidden cameras or global positioning systems, to track your movements.

Drive by or hang around your home, school or workplace.

Threaten to hurt you, your family, friends or pets.

Find information about you by searching public records or online searches, hiring private investigators, going through your garbage or contacting friends, family and neighbours.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU ARE BEING STALKED

1. Take threats seriously as stalking is unpredictable and dangerous. There is a greater risk of being harmed when the stalker talks about murder or when the victim tries to leave or end a relationship.

2. Trust your instincts. If you feel that you are in danger, you probably are.

3. If you are in immediate danger, call police emergency 119 or visit the nearest police station. Seek help from social agencies and examine the options for a protection order from the courts.

4. Develop a safety plan, including changing your travel routine, arranging for a place to stay, always going out with company. Let family, friends, roommates, co-workers and security at your work or home know that you are being stalked, so if and when the stalker shows up, you can get help.

5. Do not communicate with the stalker or respond to his/her attempts to contact you.

6. Keep evidence of the stalking by writing down times, dates, places when the stalker follows or contacts you. Keep emails, phone messages, letters or notes. Take photographs of flowers and other gifts that the stalker may have sent you. If you received injuries, take photographs, get witnesses to write down what they say and get a medical report.