Naked fear - Public nudity incidents leave many women uneasy

For 19-year-old Leonique Ford, the simple act of stepping outside her gate is laced with fear. What should be routine errands or short walks have become moments of anxiety, triggered by encounters with a man believed to be of unsound mind who regularly patrols her avenue and makes disturbing advances.

"As soon as him see me him start b@ck him f!st," Ford said.

The thought of being the focus of the man's sexual behaviour leaves her shaken and constantly on edge.

"Me 'fraid a dem," she admitted. "Mi tell mi sister seh if she a come and see him, [she should] turn back and wait until somebody else a pass [and then] she pass with them."

Ford's experience is far from isolated. Across communities in the Corporate Area, many young women say they navigate streets, run errands, or commute to school with heightened caution, particularly when encountering men who are nude or partially unclothed due to mental illness. For some, these encounters have escalated from uncomfortable to frightening.

The issue has gained renewed urgency following the circulation of a disturbing viral video showing a man, believed to be mentally ill, publicly masturbating using a jug. The footage sparked widespread outrage online and reignited national debate about public safety, mental health care, and the thin line between protecting vulnerable individuals and safeguarding the wider public.

Mental health professionals caution, however, that the situation cannot be addressed through panic, punishment, or stigma, but through awareness, early intervention, and proper treatment.

Psychiatrist Dr Brian Kazaan explained that sexual urges do not disappear simply because a person is mentally ill.

"The link between mental health and sexual urges is complex," Dr Kazaan cautioned. "Some conditions, like anxiety and depression, will cause a reduction in sexual urges, whilst others may actually cause an increase in the frequency and intensity of sexual urges."

Whether those urges are acted upon, he noted, depends on several factors.

"The type of mental illness is the biggest factor that will determine whether someone will act on an urge or not," he said.

"The existence of substance abuse, such as problematic alcohol use, will increase the likelihood that someone will act on an urge," Dr Kazaan noted.

"A history of abuse, especially childhood abuse, also increases the likelihood that someone will act on urges," he said.

While experts do not support confrontation, they stress that personal safety must remain the priority, particularly for young women. Kazaan strongly advised against mocking, taunting, or escalating encounters.

"Communities can respond to individuals with disinhibited sexual behaviour humanely by not resorting to calling them names or using derogatory language. Rather than passing judgement, they can gently encourage them to seek care.

"If some degree of reprimanding is necessary, then it should be done in a respectful and time-efficient manner without the need for laughter or harmful language."

While experts call for compassion, educators say the fear felt by young women in public spaces is very real and cannot be ignored.

Shadell Gordon-Fullerton, a guidance counsellor at St Andrew High School for Girls, has urged the authorities to do more to shield the public from homeless and mentally ill persons whose genitalia are often exposed on the streets.

"We don't have much complaints; however, there are some of them who have shared what they encountered when they are passing mentally ill persons who are in a nude state, or even mentally ill persons generally," Gordon-Fullerton said.

Students, she noted, have expressed fear that some of these encounters could escalate into attacks.

"I always encourage them to be aware of their surroundings and assess whether they can reroute, cross the road and not walk in their direction, because you never know when these persons will go off," she said.

From the institutional side, Suzette Buchanan, CEO of Bellevue Hospital, said the country's lone specialist psychiatric hospital is already operating beyond its limits. Bellevue, she explained, currently houses about 500 patients, but roughly 400 beds are occupied by social cases--individuals abandoned by families and left at the institution for decades.

"Many of these family members, they have place to put them, they just don't want to be bothered with them. Dem carry dem and lef' dem a Bellevue, and then other persons that need immediate care would not be able to access these care," she said.

Still, Buchanan cautioned against painting all mentally ill persons as dangerous.

"One of the things that we have to do is to shift the narrative from fear to risk awareness. The reality is that most people living with mental illness are not violent," she said.