'Rise in domestic violence during SoE was predictable'

Trinidad Express Newspaper: 

'Rise in domestic violence during SoE was predictable'

By Kim Boodram

Story Created: Sep 11, 2011 at 9:46 PM ECT

Story Updated: Sep 11, 2011 at 9:46 PM ECT

Women and children's affairs activist, Hazel Brown, said she was shocked that local authorities on domestic violence did not forsee a rise in this activity when a State of Emergency was declared by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on August 20.
Brown said in an interview Saturday there were people in authority who should have known that the home is one of the least safe places for women and children in Trinidad and Tobago society.
Since the start of the SoE, three women and one man have been killed in domestic disputes.
On August 25, Kareem Alexander, 28, of Connector Road, Felicity, Chaguanas, was stabbed in the back by a female relative during an argument at his home. He died at the Chaguanas Health Facility.
On August 31, Carol Walcott was found dead at her home at Demerara Heights, Arima. She was lying face down on her bed, blood oozing from her mouth. An autopsy revealed that she died from blunt force trauma to the head but her death remains inconclusive.
On September 3, Karensa Diamond was bludgeoned to death with a hammer by her boyfriend, Nigel Castillo, who later committed suicide.
On September 6, Felicia Samsundar, 22, of Hermitage Village, Macaulay, was beaten and strangled to death with a telephone charger during a domestic dispute at a guest house in Tobago.
On September 9, Sohanie Ramsundar, 37, a mother of four was found with her throat slit. Her death is also being treated as a domestic matter.
The SOE came with a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew until last Monday, when it was changed to 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., with an SoE extension of three months.
"One of the justification for the State of Emergency, given by people who should know better, is that it would improve family life by having men stay at home," said Brown, Co-ordinator of the Network of Non-governmental Organisations.
"There is a total lack of thinking when they make these statements.
"I wonder if they haven't been told that the most unsafe place for women and children is the home. But we don't, as a society, place importance on women and children and we do not treat domestic violence as a crime. If it does not involve robbery and so on, we do not see it as a crime." Brown said it was another unfortunate fact that "nothing will be learned" from the incidents during this period.
"Anything that requires the perpetrators of crimes to spend more time at home is a recipe for what we are seeing," she added.
"And not all are reported, not when there are more important things like guns to put in the papers."
Brown said there continues to be nothing but "pronouncements" on the issue of domestic violence, without any real action to mitigate existing situations and prevent further abuse from developing. Families are not being offered the opportunities to learn the art of negotiation and mediation, she said, so that they can diffuse tension in the home and hopefully prevent violence.
"If you can't walk away, what do you do? Most of the time, it is 'I want something and you want something else', so how do you find the middle ground? Some people have to be taught how to do that," Brown said.
"When you talk about domestic violence, it should also be about helping people to develop those skills of negotiation."
There is also a lack of intervention by other individuals because communities are no longer empowered like they used to be.
There are still some pockets around the country where small communities are empowered in that way and still consult one another on domestic and community issues but this is mostly a lost tradition," Brown said.
"In order for someone to intervene, you have to know what you are doing," she said.
Brown added:
"The people who shocked me the most were the so-called psychiatrists who made statements about the curfew improving family life. Unless they have done something about remedying the domestic violence situation that we don't know about."

Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/_Rise_in_domestic_violence_during_SoE_was_predictable_-129628428.html