That National Dialogue on Domestic Violence (Part 1)

Dear Editor,
The Caribbean Voice (TCV) fervently hopes that First Lady Sandra Granger’s upcoming National Dialogue on Domestic Violence would consider proposals made by a number of commentators, analysts and letter writers: a coordinated community response via a task-force; review of the domestic violence laws and a concerted effort to implement and enforce them; Police training on the provisions of the Domestic Violence Law, emphatic communication, and an overall more effective approach to domestic violence; timely and greater responses to complaints and requests for protection orders supported by stringent enforcement; domestic violence courts; social workers and/or counsellors at all Police stations, a batterer’s intervention programme; an education campaign that focuses on modelling and highlighting healthy relationships, and on tackling the victim blaming and shaming mentality that currently exists; provision of more safe houses; more Probation and Welfare Officers to service the courts; greater interagency and stakeholders’ collaboration; videoing by the public of inappropriate Police behaviour/responses to complaints and submission of same to their superiors.
Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan was recently quoted in the media as saying that domestic violence is “a very difficult thing to prevent when someone (is) feeling angry for whatever reason…I don’t know what we can do, or how we can legislate against that…What we have to do is…ensure better education; but, there again, the officer (Orwain Sandy) that did what he did was an educated fella”.
Actually, anger is not a root cause for domestic violence. The same person whose anger leads him/her to violence in a relationship would generally not be violent at the workplace, in a Government office, or with a leader or opinion shaper, no matter how angry he/she is. Domestic violence occurs because the abuser needs to be in control and/or dominate the other partner, and/or the abuser is socialised into thinking intimate partner violence is an acceptable way to solve conflicts.
Anger, drugs, alcohol catalyse the abuse. What in effect is needed is the implementation of the requisite programmes, policies and strategies, some of which have been mentioned above, and some of which may need legislation. Others would include programmes – anger management, anti-alcohol and anti-drugs –to address the related mental health issues.
Additionally, measures are needed to shape the socialisation process, so that children — especially boys — are imbued with the right mentality from young; so that parents can apply appropriate parenting skills; so dysfunctional relationships can be re-engineered to evolve without violence, and so that schools can provide discipline without violence. As tennis champ Serena Williams stated in a June 21st article in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, “It’s important to get the message out there to our young men, to our boys, to our daughters”.
Also, it must be noted that academic education does not necessarily prepare someone to not descend into abuse. In fact, abuse cuts across all strata and segments of society, and all walks of life.
With respect to multi-stakeholders’ collaboration, a good starting point could be this National Dialogue. When The Caribbean Voice held its National Stakeholders’ Conference in August 2015, over 75 stakeholders were present from across Guyana. In terms of logistics and resources, the First Lady is in a position to do far better, and so we hope that her national dialogue would see representation from all stakeholders involved at any level in addressing domestic violence: persons who already have displayed passion and commitment to addressing domestic violence; persons who are already on the ground, giving of their time, effort and resources, and thus having a grasp of the realities around domestic violence would be there for the long run, 24/7, and not only from 8 to 5 until the money runs out.

Sincerely
The Caribbean Voice