BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 4th December  2020)-Well-known public figure and social activist 30-year-old De-Syl Hamilton of Nevis is using his outspoken ways to bring action-oriented attention to an issue debatable described as a ‘deafening silent’ one in many societies, and that is sexual violence against women and children.

This media house recently had a telephone interview with Hamilton who told that he has been networking, both locally and regionally, in an effort to ensure achievement is made for additional legislation to exist in St.Kitts-Nevis in the form of a sex offender registry.

Additionally, he has highlighted that he is going about the proper channels including getting the involvement of the Ministry of Gender Affairs in putting a proposal document together to approach the relevant authorities including Premier Mark Brantley.

“I’m arranging with a number of individuals locally and regionally to have a sound proposal to present to the parliamentarians so they cannot ignore a unified voice of the society that is seeking to bring healing and justice, “he remarked.

Holding a placard with the words ‘PROTECT OUR WOMEN + CHIRREN’, Hamilton made his protest debut via a live video recording and a photo posted on social media, specifically Facebook, on Thursday 19th November 2020. Spot chosen is outside Premier Brantley’s ministry -housed at the Social Security building- for one hour on Thursdays for a period of four weeks.

“It (the photo) was shared over a hundred times which was really overwhelming for me because it shows that there are persons who really want the cause to be taken seriously. It has been a very powerful show of support. Persons told me that they received the photo in their WhatsApp group; one or two persons made the photo their profile picture.  This one person reached out to me saying they know a parent whose daughter is waiting on the court system to bring her some justice and that parent has shared that photo all her over social media platforms. So people are glad that someone is actually saying that we really need to pay a bit more attention to what is happening here in the society,” he commented.

Questioned about the objective of protesting, Hamilton told: “The objective of the movement is simple. It is to inspire all of us who have been talking about it to take some more action and also to have our leaders make amendments in our current sexual assault legislation and to start working on sex offender registry legislation. The registry legislation already exists in some countries in the Caribbean such as Jamaica, Trinidad and Belize.”   
He continued: “There is also a regional NGO [NON-Governmental Organization] entity called the Caribbean Committee Against Sex Crimes [CCASC] in Trinidad that is actually trying to push for all of the various CARICOM countries to come together and to work on a regional sex offender registry that would also work in collaboration with a sex offender registry in the United States of America.”

Hamilton informed that the person responsible for that committee “has reached out to me very recently since I’ve started demonstrating. This movement is big and it’s happening …and we’re going to be collaborating; they’ll be assisting with whatever support they can and they have partners in the US as well, and hopefully things get really going as we push for legislative change and society change as well because even if there is legislation, the persons who are responsible for putting these legislation into action, need to take action and we need to have support.”

As to what has motivated his protest move, Hamilton had this to say: “A few victims of sexual abuse have shared their stories recently. In our culture, we often stop and fall short of acting and I want to be the change I want to see in society so I’m acting on my conviction so that is what inspired me to do the demonstration because too often as a society we just sit around and also we don’t participate in civic responsibility as much as we should so I decided that I would take a stand.”

When asked about his choice of words for the first protest, he spoke about having seen different phrasing put out by various movements across the world but decided not to wait until he had the perfect words. He exampled the Black Lives Matter movement as well as #MeToo, relative to the general subject matter, which has been the movement against inappropriate behaviour, sexual assault in the United States.

“But in thinking about it, I didn’t want to wait until I had the perfect words or phrase before I actually go out and do something. I used the words ‘Protect Our Chirren and women, and Chirren [meaning children] especially is part of our local dialect, and the purpose for that word in particular was to make it more heartfelt and let everyone feel included regardless of their social status because we all know who the ‘chirren’ are, and so it brings a sense of warmness to it and is inviting so that people would feel that. It also shows that I am not ashamed of our local heritage,” he outlined.

Notably, some individuals have joined the ‘Protect Our Chirren and Women’ movement in a show of public solidarity with Hamilton.
“The movement is fresh but I have committed four weeks. As more and more people are inspired, we would schedule more demonstrations because we don’t want the country’s leadership to think we are not serious about the issue,” he expressed.

Hamilton said that the first protest spot has been chosen for two reasons.
“Firstly, Premier Brantley is the leader of the local Nevis Island Administration [NIA] and the CCM [Concerned Citizens Movement] administration. He is also the leader of the CCM administration that represents the interests of Nevisians in the federal parliament. Obviously, we would want our issues taken care of on a federal level because any laws that have to be put in place will have to go through the federal government so I’ll be taking the issue to the parliamentarians who will be taking the issue to parliament for us.”

Hamilton is well-known for having won the 2016-2017 crown for the Mr. Kool Competition and also the Mr. G-Cue Competition, respectively for Culturama in Nevis and Sugar Mas (St.Kitts-Nevis National Carnival).
Front Page Photo: Well-known public figure and social activist 30-year-old De-Syl Hamilton seen holding a placard with the words ‘PROTECT OUR WOMEN + CHIRREN’ for week one of protest on Thursday 19th November 2020