I am a survivor of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Nester Flanders-Skeete

By Lorraine Waldropt-Ferguson

Story Created: Mar 20, 2015 at 8:59 PM ECT

Story Updated: Mar 20, 2015 at 8:59 PM ECT

Have you ever started watching a horror movie and you keep wondering when you will see the happy ending? Scenes that evoke an emotional onslaught of pain, hurt and despair. It seems like too much to digest. This is how I feel when domestic violence survivor/mentor, Nester Flanders-Skeete talks about her experiences in a violent relationship.

“It was licks like peas, both verbal and physical. I got married young, had my kids, but the domestic violence was a part of our lives from day one. I didn’t have anywhere to run. The beatings were terrible girl. Everyone knew but no one really reached out until later on. I remember running to my father and stepmother’s home once and them marching me back to my husband. ‘Yuh have to go back to yuh husband, that is where yuh belong!’, they said.” It became a cycle, my sons were young, I would get my licks, leave and then frustrated by nowhere and no one to turn to I would come back to the same situation. He was more than250 pounds; he used his size to intimidate me!”- remembers the mother of six.

The 52-year-old woman then scratches her head and begins another episode in her horror story-”I tuck away all these things girl, deep down in my head. I am digging them up to tell you. You see domestic violence victims try to forget the pain and suffering, tuck away the memories under the carpet but the truth is these things live with you, girl. Like one day my violator (then husband) was fixing the water heater and I turned it on by mistake. Well boy, I missed his cutlass swing by an inch. Like if I was in a trance. I just grab my children and run”.

“Did you return? I ask to which she laughs cynically. “You know how many times I leave and come back. The next thing I must tell you about battered women — we feel alone in the world. Is as if the world moving on and you just staying one place. In those days I was in my own bubble, I didn’t even know what was going on in the country or even in my village in Pointe-a-Pierre. All I know was I had to do everything possible to stay alive. Sometimes I wanted to kill him. Yes, ‘is either me or he have to dead’, I used to say until he silence me with some slaps and more and then the cycle started all over again,” the former Couva Junior Secondary School pupil enlightens.” Did you try to contact anybody at the Battered Women’s Association of Trinidad and Tobago or other help lines?- I am trying to decipher if she had enough options to leave the horrifying situation. “Hotline? In those days it didn’t have all the organisations and NGOs that exist today. All there was back then was Dateline, the TV Show. It was a Dateline show with former TV woman, Allison Hennessey, actually that made me realise that this situation wasn’t normal and that I should try to get out once and for all,” Flander-Skeete states.

That horror movie. As I listen to even more segments of violence, frustration and near-death attacks in this domestic violence survivor’s journal of experiences I realise why she stayed in the relationship for so long. Like many women in her situation she had no place to run to, no place to hide, no resources to make it on her own.

“I passed through hell on earth and I joined a Baptist Church and started building my spirituality brick by brick. By this time I had four children. And that was the thing, I had sexual issues too. I was raped at gunpoint when I was 18.” Wait, raped? It’s starting to feel like scenes from the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre again. And then she inserts the many times she tried to commit suicide, her heart problems and nervous breakdowns due to stress…

Ahhh! but after a few minutes my moment has come, the storyline begins turning around, the happy ending is coming. The saga continues- eventually, Flanders-Skeete decided enough was enough. An inkling of independence and a new purpose engulfed her as she enrolled as a security guard and made her ultimate move out of her abyss of domestic violence. “I moved out for good. I had become stronger to face my reality. Girl, I just get this drive from God to delete myself from the pain. I move out yes!”

Her children stayed with their dad, fatherhood was an art which he perfected, explained the former employee of Self-help for the Elderly. With time the new and improved Nester Flanders-Skeete sought the help she needed from various helplines which were now emerging in Trinidad. And, she met a new guy who treated her as a queen and gave her the support she badly needed. Soon her wounds began to heal. “Healing could not have taken place without my deep spirituality and the people I met who helped greatly in the later half. Girl, is my new love who really bring me out of it too. We used to just sit down and talk about life. Soon I start to come to terms with my bad past and healing started!”

But the real happy ending is brainchild NGO, Domestic Violence Survivors Reaching Out (DVSRO), an organisation which Flanders-Skeete founded three years ago. A group of domestic violence survivors, qualified personnel, and friends, coming together as the voice of the scared, silent and abused, DVSRO’s main focus is to stop the violence in homes, communities and schools. “This idea came to me because I wanted to be the voice for others, the voice I never had in my years of pain. Our mission is to reach out to the confused, misused, and abused in domestic violence. We want to open the eyes of those who are and could be potential victims. Identifying the red flags even before it happens, reducing the risk surrounding domestic violence and encouraging them to speak up and seek assistance; those are some of our goals. Breaking the silence and cycle, and identifying what is domestic violence and even the red flags by which it can be recognised are also real important in saving a woman who is being abused,” she declares.

Today she is the one many organisations turn to for help with domestic violence and other cases against. Through DVSRO, Flanders-Skeete also provides outreach, workshops, motivational talks and more to many communities in T&T. Her source of funding on many occasions are through fund-raisers such as barbeques but through her commitment and that of others on her team she is successful in carrying out her new purpose which is to save as many women as she can before it’s too late.

“Before its too late like what happened to Marcia Henville. She was a good friend of mine and someone who I referred my cases to at times,” sighs the vibrant leader on the death of media personality and activist, Marcia Henville. I sigh as well.

Very soon DVSRO will undertake a new initiative to build a Home for Battered Women. I acknowledge with awe the fact that Nester Flanders-Skeete’s plot has changed. I get my happy ending but it’s not just the perfect conclusion for my interview but the perfect SOS for many women out there in the midst of domestic violence and other social ills.

Source:  http://www.trinidadexpress.com/woman-magazine/I-am-a-survivor-of-297095171.html

Tackle domestic violence from early

Story Created: Mar 12, 2015 at 8:20 PM ECT

Story Updated: Mar 12, 2015 at 8:20 PM ECT 

 

 The Prime Minister’s recent pledge to strengthen laws to combat violence against women, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, is a well-intentioned yet lacklustre plan. Public policy can only go so far when there exists a crisis in our national mindset, and this announcement comes as simply another attempt to bandage a wound without actually getting to the root of the issue.

 

There is in fact a fundamental prob­lem with the way in which men view women in our society, and the measures proposed to address the national scourge of domestic violence merely scratch the surface. While it is undeniable women have visibly made their mark in fields such as education, media and commerce, touting their commendable achievements does not erase this underlying concern. 

 

The tragic case of Marcia Henville, a prominent and successful public figure whose life was allegedly cut short by her estranged husband, highlights the fact domestic abuse knows no limits. This is compounded by the results of a 2013 UNAIDS survey which revealed while most respondents considered domestic violence to be a problem in Trinidad and Tobago, one in seven men claimed it acceptable to beat their wife if she were unfaithful. Even more shocking is half of those surveyed believe a woman dressing provocatively could encourage a man to rape her. A man literally leading a woman along by a piece of rope is a clear reflection of what lies deep within part of our population’s psyche—that it is acceptable to dehumanise and objectify women. These examples are symptoms of a grim epidemic which demands an urgent and comprehensive response. 

Although the plan to implement “women city centres” is a positive initiative, it intends to undertake the matter from the wrong end. After all, prevention is better than cure, hence why these announcements appear to be nothing more than a half-hearted effort to better the lives of our nation’s women. 

 

If the Prime Minister and her Gov­ernment were truly committed to supporting policies which would benefit women, this plan would instead be directed towards tackling domestic abuse at its source, by introducing an educational scheme through which both males and females learn about gender equality from the youngest possible age.  

 

Providing information for females alone is pointless; these centres should also prioritise educating men on a national scale to ensure the universal understanding and appreciation for the rights of women. The solution must therefore be two-pronged, not only incorporating both sexes but also addressing the causes and consequences of violence against women. 

 

When all is said and done, the significant strides taken by our many female leaders in their respective industries are negated as long as women continue to be victims of abuse in public and in their own homes. The only way to see that this ends is to confront this problem from the ground up, rather than repeatedly suggesting the same misdirected approach. 

 

Shannon Miller

Leicester, England

 

Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/letters/Tackle-domestic-violence-from-early-296148501.html

Child witnesses parents’ murder/suicide: Abusive husband kills wife, self

Sascha Wilson

Published: Monday, March 9, 2015

Jessica Brereton, shot dead. Anil Lalmansingh, committed suicide.

As women across the world yesterday celebrated International Women’s Day, a Marabella family were grief-stricken after man killed his wife and himself in the presence of their five-year-old daughter. The murder/suicide has left the families of both Jessica Brereton, 34, and Anil Lalmansingh, 41, of South Oropouche, in shock as they were unaware that the couple was in a violent relationship. Lalmansingh shot Brereton dead before turning the gun on himself on Saturday night.

Police said around 9 pm, a man was at Princess Margaret Street, San Fernando when he heard several loud explosions. The man saw a little girl, around five-years-old, running towards him. The child told the man that her parents were dead, police said. He called the police and when they arrived on the scene, the officers found both left side doors of a silver BMW parked at Princess Margaret Street open and the bodies of a man and woman with gunshot wounds inside.

Brereton was slumped in the front passenger seat while Lalmansingh was in the driver’s seat. Police also recovered a revolver, believed to be the murder weapon, near the gear lever. Both Brereton and Lalmansingh worked at Iere Express Couriers Ltd and had been together for more than two years. They had no children together, but Brereton had two children—five-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy—from two previous relationships. Lalmansingh had an 18-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.

At her Seaview Drive, Marabella home yesterday, Brereton’s mother, Veronica Noel, said her daughter broke off the relationship before Christmas, but Lalmansingh would not leave her alone. Noel said she never knew that her daughter was in an abusive relationship until yesterday morning when one of Brereton’s friend told her that Lalmansingh used to beat and verbally abuse Brereton. “We had a close relationship. She should have told me something,” said Noel.

All she knew was that Lalmansingh was always asking her for money. She said Lalmansingh would still pick her daughter up for work and sometimes they worked late. She said on Saturday around 8.30 pm, Brereton left in Lalmansingh’s car, saying she was going to Fyzabad to come back. She took her daughter because she said she was not going to be long, Noel said. Not long after someone called Noel and gave her the bad news. When the police contacted her, she went to the Homicide Office where the police handed over her granddaughter to her.

“When I asked her for her mother she said ‘Mummy gone in the hospital.’” Noel said she was waiting until members of church arrive to speak to the child further about what happened. Describing Brereton as a nice person who was always smiling, Noel said her daughter worked hard to take care for her children.

Meanwhile, Lalmansingh’s relatives were at his Mitchell Street home yesterday trying to come to terms with what happened. Lalmansingh’s older sister, Kim Bhola, said he was not a violent person and not abusive to Brereton. “Anil loved that girl. He told my sister he love she. That is why everybody is like, ‘What happened? What went wrong?” “Anil was never a violent person, he was a cheerful person and was always there for his family.” When she heard the news, she said she was both hurt and shocked. “My mom cannot hold up right now.”

She last spoke with Lalmansingh about two weeks ago when their mother came to visit them from the United States. Asked if she knew why he killed himself and Brereton, she said: “We don’t know? We don’t have no idea if they had a dispute or a quarrel?” As far she was aware, Lalmansingh and Brereton was still in a relationship. She said Brereton lived by her brother for a while and sometimes he would say by her (Brereton). She sympathised with the Brereton’s family.

“As a mother my heart went out to them. It is so sad. I want to give sympathy to them. I don’t know what went wrong.” Autopsies are expected to be performed today at the Forensic Science Centre, Port-of-Spain. Cpl Charles of the Homicide Bureau of Investigations South is investigating.

Source:  http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2015-03-09/child-witnesses-parents%E2%80%99-murdersuicide-abusive-husband-kills-wife-self

MURDER-SUICIDE HORROR

Girl, 5, sees mom killed

By Carolyn Kissoon

Story Updated: Mar 8, 2015 at 11:36 PM ECT

DEAD: Anil Lalmansingh

 

A five-year-old girl who was in the back seat of a car had to watch as a man shot her mother dead before turning the weapon on himself on Saturday night.

Little Kensiya Ragoonanan ran out of the vehicle into the arms of a stranger, who was standing on the roadway.

Benedict Gabriel, of Pleasantville, told police he was standing at Princess Margaret Street, San Fernando around 9 p.m. when he heard explosions.

Gabriel said he saw a little girl running towards him. She said her mother was dead.

San Fernando police responded to the report and found the child’s mother, Jessica Brereton, dead in the front passenger seat. A man was slumped in the driver’s seat of the silver BMW car with gunshot wounds to the head.

He was identified as Anil Lalmansingh, 41, of Mitchell Street, South Oropouche.

Brereton, 34, lived at Seaview Drive, Marabella.

Relatives said the couple, who worked together at Iere Express Couriers in San Fernando, had been in a relationship for almost three years.

But late last year, relatives said, Brereton, an administrative assistant, ended the relationship.

Her mother, Veronica Noel, said, “She left home around 8.30 p.m. to go to Fyzabad. She didn’t say why. I ask her about her daughter and she said the child was going with her. She and the man worked together and they were in a relationship. Just before Christmas she ended the relationship because things were not working out. I didn’t know the details. But the man went Miami and came back and they were talking again.”

Brereton was also the mother of 11-year-old Hezekiah Brandon.

Following the shooting, Noel was informed that her daughter was in an abusive relationship with the man. “She confided in a friend. She didn’t tell me. I heard that he locked her in a room at work and wanted to stab her. He would rough her up in the office and she couldn’t put up with it anymore. I can’t understand why she didn’t tell me, because we had a good relationship. I heard that the man convinced my daughter to keep secrets from me because he knew I would go to the police,” she said.

Noel said Brereton was the second of her four children. “I got a call from someone who knew the man and she told me my daughter was shot dead. I didn’t believe it until the police called. I went to the station but they didn’t hand over Kensiya. I had to send for my identification card and the police brought her home to us. I am now left to care for my grandchildren,” she said.

The police and church have offered counselling to the little girl.

At Lalmansingh’s home in South Oropouche relatives were shocked by the news that he had killed Brereton and himself.

His older sister, Kim Bhola, said Lalmansingh loved Brereton dearly and wanted to marry her.

She said after her brother divorced six years ago, he found love in his co-worker and the two shared a good relationship. Lalmansingh, a courier, was the father of an 18-year-old girl.

Bhola said Brereton lived with her brother, who never displayed violent behaviour.

“He was in Miami recently and was supposed to go again this month. I got the news from my mom in New York, someone called her last night. He loved the girl, everybody was in shock,” she said.
Bhola said she sympathised with Brereton’s family.

“As a mother, my heart goes out to that family. I know they must be hurting just like us. It is so sad. I don’t know what went wrong. I don’t know why this happened,” she said.

Lalmansingh’s car was seized by investigators, as homicide detectives continue investigations.
The murder toll now stands at 84, according to an Express tally. 

 

Source: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/MURDER-SUICIDE-HORROR-295562391.html

International Women’s Day highlights End the Right To Rape campaign

Marital rape is not a crime in more than 73 per cent of the world’s countries. Source: News Limited

HUSBANDS who rape their wives in 142 countries across the world, including European powerhouses Spain, Italy and Germany, will not automatically be charged with a crime. 
 
That’s the shocking finding of a UN report which details how a staggering 73 per cent of the world’s countries do not explicitly outlaw a husband raping his wife, affecting 2.6 billion women.

According to the 2011-2012 Progress of the World’s Womenreport no country in the Middle East has outlawed it, while even some western countries have failed to act.

While acknowledging the report is not new, the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) are using the staggering statistic to push its End the Right to Rape campaign as part of International Women’s Day.

IWDA spokeswoman Bettina Baldeschi told news.com.au the 73 per cent figure still stood, despite the fact that a couple of the countries had outlawed marital rape since the report was published.

 

The statistics which may shock you. Picture: International Women's Development Agency. Source: Supplied

“Regardless, we think it’s outrageous that any country in the world has failed to explicitly outlaw marital rape,” she said.

“When governments fail to do this, they contribute to the perception that rape within marriage is acceptable.

“That’s a disgrace, and that’s why we are demanding an end to impunity.”

The IWDA are asking Australians to sign the petition demanding action by telling the world that no man has the right to rape.

It will then take the petition to the UN Headquarters in New York for the global gathering of the Commission on the Status of Women in a bid to pressure all governments around the world to take action.

Ms Baldeschi said the statistic was one which still shocked her and Australia, while outlawing marital rape, was not immune to violence against women or challenges when it came to gender equality.

“One third of Australian women will have experienced violence in their lifetime,” she said.
She added the petition was just one part of the organisation’s goal to push women’s rights further and to mark what the movement had achieved.

The campaign has already garnered some movement on social media with people tweeting support under the hashtag ##EndTheRightToRape.

However, Ms Baldeschi warned there was still plenty of work to be done around the world and now was the time to take action on that.

Just this week, NSW announced it is taking action towards helping to stop domestic violence offences with the creation of the first of its kind register.

Premier Mike Baird and minister for women Pru Goward promised that, if re-elected, the state will become the first state in Australia to get a domestic violence register.

The premier said the register would help protect women against violent partners by giving women the “right to ask” authorities if they have concerns their partner has a violent history.

The end the right to rape campaign aims to pressure governments around the world to take action on violence against women. Source: News Corp Australia

 

Some of the countries where marital rape is not explicitly outlawed:

EUROPE:
Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Germany, Italy, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Spain.

ASIA:
Indonesia, Myanmar, Nauru, PNG, Samoa, Singapore, Japan

SOUTH ASIA:
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan

LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN:
Belize, Ecuador, Jamaica, Panama, Uruguay.

MIDDLE EAST:
None explicitly outlaw marital rape

AFRICA:
Botswana, CAR, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria.

* source: The United Nations 2011-2012 Progress of the World’s Women report

Source: http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/international-womens-day-highlights-end-the-right-to-rape-campaign/story-fnq2o7dd-1227252605714