More safe houses needed to protect victims – acting Chief Magistrate

Domestic violence

As a two-year study by Red Thread wrapped up and the findings were presented on Friday at the University of Guyana Turkeyen campus, Acting Chief Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus expressed her conviction that there is grave need for

availability of more safe houses to protect domestic violence victims and survivors.
According to statistics from the study, 81 per cent of domestic violence cases were reported by women as against 17 per cent being reported by men. And in regard to persons being subjected to court orders, 83 per cent of men were respondents to the orders, as against 17 per cent women.
The Acting Chief Magistrate has recommended that there be more specialised counselling services for children even as she drew attention to the shortage of Probation and Welfare Officers to service the courts.
“In many instances they are adjournments because the Probation Officer is not ready with the report, and that is because that one Probation Officer is servicing three or four Magistrates’ Courts,” she explained.
The Red Thread survey found that between January and May 2018, some 333 of the 3,067 matters filed in the East Demerara Magisterial District were domestic violence matters. In the Essequibo Magisterial District, 3084 matters were filed, with 35 of those being domestic violence matters. In the Georgetown Magisterial District, there were 7,972 matters filed, with 352 of those being domestic violence matters. And in the Berbice Magisterial District, there were 1947 matters filed, of which 35 were domestic violence cases.
Several presentations clearly pointed out that, in most cases, victims of domestic violence have nowhere else to go, and would stay in abusive relationships because of that reason. A call was accordingly made for more sensitisation to be done, so victims would feel convinced that they do not have to stay in those types of relationships.
On Wednesday last, an East Bank Berbice man was found hanging from a rafter under an abandoned house at Glasgow Village moments after he had reportedly killed his wife and daughter.
Jainarine Seetaram, 41, also called “Radoo, allegedly killed his wife Dindamattie Behari, 37, and daughter Surujdai Khan, 20, in a gruesome manner at their home at Lot 1078 Glasgow New Housing Scheme, Greater New Amsterdam, Berbice, after he had reportedly accused his wife of infidelity.
When 2018 was just four months old, some 13 women had already died at the hands of their partners, as domestic violence in Guyana continues its upsurge.
Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan has since said this scourge is not something that can just be tackled from a law enforcement perspective. Rather, it requires intensified inter-agency collaboration.
“There is a lot of socioeconomic and non-law enforcement policies that will have to take care of that: better parenting, schooling, the religious communities, have to deal with that. Law enforcement has to do with when the law is broken, but, as a Government, we have an obligation to ensure prevention; but it is a very difficult thing to prevent when someone (is) feeling angry for whatever reason,” Ramjattan said.
“I don’t know what we can do, or how we can legislate against that. It is an extraordinarily difficult thing. What we have to do is to develop the community, ensure better education; but, there again, the officer (Orwain Sandy) that did what he did was an educated fella,” he had added.