Mothers in Black, an ad hoc group of mostly women campaigners seeking reform of local traffic laws, recently received drafts of traffic legislation relating to seat belts, breathalysers, radar guns and a proposed demerit system from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Stabroek News
July 4, 2001
They dubbed the drafts which they received on June 19 and 22 as "small victories," since they have seen "little or no change in systems, law enforcement, and the number of deaths escalates."
Mothers In Black this week marks one year of their Friday vigil opposite Parliament Buildings to demand an end to the road slaughter of children and other commuters.
Referring to the drafts of traffic legislation, a press release from the group said "This is good. But it is not good enough. We are waiting for other revisions in the traffic laws and call on the Honourable Minister of Home Affairs to expedite the complete traffic legislation package to present to Parliament soon."
In a special action plan to mark their one year of protest, the group took their vigil yesterday outside the President's Office at the Vlissengen Road entrance. Today, the Mothers in Black vigil will be staged outside the Ministry of Home Affairs on Brickdam between 11:30 am and 1:00 pm and tomorrow the group will move to the Ministry of Education on the same street.
On Friday, the vigil returns outside Parliament Buildings and it is expected to be larger than ever as the group expects members of the public to come out and stand with them and on every Friday thereafter.
"All Guyana must actively show our intolerance of the continued road slaughter. For us in Mothers In Black, we refuse to accept that we must raise children to die senselessly," the release stated.
"By maintaining our weekly vigil for one full year," the group noted, "we believe that we have won an important moral victory, and shown our determination not to give up until Guyana's children are safe."
Mothers In Black was formed on the 7th July, 2000 in response to two terrible crashes that took place the previous weekend on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway, taking multiple lives, mostly children.
The release said "it was then that mothers, relatives and friends of Guyanese slaughtered on our roads decided to speak in the voice of the victims."
They had hoped that their weekly vigil would have jolted politicians, law enforcers, and the general public to take immediate action.
However, after one year, "we truly know how little respect our society has for human life, and for our work and love as mothers in nurturing human life."