Last week, two women called for a re­view of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is­sues. Gabrielle Hen­der­son, the Unit­ed Na­tion's Women's Pro­gramme spe­cial­ist for the re­gion, not­ed that in the Caribbean, men were still be­ing so­cialised to be ag­gres­sive and dom­i­nant while women were still ex­pect­ed to be pas­sive.

Nafeesa Mo­hammed, chair­man of the San Juan Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, called for more at­ten­tion to be paid to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence ac­tion plan that has been await­ing ac­tion since 2007. Both is­sues speak to gen­der equal­i­ty is­sues and the ex­pec­ta­tions of men in the Caribbean and ques­tion our so­ci­ety's ca­pac­i­ty to man­age prob­lems when they arise.

These is­sues are among those on the agen­da of civ­il so­ci­ety as ef­forts are made to raise aware­ness on the sub­ject dur­ing 16 days ded­i­cat­ed to ac­tivism against gen­der-based vi­o­lence. The fort­night plus of fo­cus on the is­sue be­gan on No­vem­ber 25, the UN des­ig­nat­ed In­ter­na­tion­al day for the elim­i­na­tion of vi­o­lence against women.

In March, Ad­vo­cates for Safe Par­ent­hood: Im­prov­ing Re­pro­duc­tive Eq­ui­ty (As­pire) an­nounced sta­tis­tics from the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Unit (Ca­pa) of the Po­lice Ser­vice that point­ed to in­creas­es in breach­es of pro­tec­tion or­ders is­sued by the courts, which al­most dou­bled from 83 in 2008 to 157 in 2011.

As­sault by beat­ing in­creased to 1,243 re­port­ed in­ci­dents in 2011, more than dou­ble the 2009 tal­ly of 568. Sta­tis­tics in the re­port tend to fluc­tu­ate over the ten years cov­ered by the Ca­pa re­port, but the trend to in­creas­es in re­port­ed num­bers may rep­re­sent in­creas­es in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, though they may al­so in­di­cate im­prove­ments in the qual­i­ty of po­lice in­ter­ven­tions and greater con­fi­dence in the out­comes of such re­ports.

Im­prove­ments in the han­dling of lo­cal cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence might ac­count for the sharp rise in the num­bers of men re­port­ing such in­ci­dents. In 2010, 322 males re­port­ed cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, a num­ber that jumped to 807 in 2011.

The need to pos­i­tive­ly and de­ci­sive­ly en­gage with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is no longer the province of so­cial work­ers and NGOs. The Po­lice Ser­vice has com­mend­ably im­proved its com­mu­ni­ty re­la­tions in this sen­si­tive area by putting em­pha­sis on its Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit, led by re­tired as­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mar­garet Samp­son-Browne.

Mrs Samp­son-Browne has brought a com­pas­sion­ate, firm and un­equiv­o­cal voice to the sen­si­tive mat­ter of po­lice in­ter­ven­tion in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Be­tween 2008 and Ju­ly 2012, the unit man­aged 2,267 cas­es.

Do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­mains a per­sis­tent and trou­bling preva­lent as­pect of our so­ci­ety and while there have been dis­tinct im­prove­ments, what re­mains to be im­ple­ment­ed is a strate­gic pro­gramme led by the Gov­ern­ment to lever­age all its as­sets to en­sure that do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is re­ject­ed as an al­ter­na­tive to civ­il dis­course, court-led me­di­a­tion and the cham­pi­oning of re­spect­ful re­la­tion­ships.

Those are among the key goals of the 16-day ar­tic­u­la­tion of is­sues re­lat­ed to gen­der vi­o­lence by the Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety of T&T, the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion for Fem­i­nist Re­search and Ac­tion, As­pire, the UN sys­tem in T&T and the YW­CA.

Nafeesa Mo­hammed quite right­ly wants to see the work of the do­mes­tic vi­o­lence com­mit­tee led by re­tired Jus­tice Jean Per­manand, put in­to ac­tion.

That com­mit­tee, which mo­bilised the ju­di­cia­ry, po­lice and so­cial ser­vices, cre­at­ed an ac­tion plan which would go some dis­tance to pro­vid­ing a for­mal struc­ture for more spe­cif­ic ac­tion on these is­sues and would pro­vide a strate­gic struc­ture to man­age do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sit­u­a­tions more ef­fec­tive­ly.

Clear­ly do­mes­tic vi­o­lence isn't go­ing to dis­ap­pear on its own. There are im­por­tant pro­grammes in place now that lu­bri­cate re­port­ing of in­ci­dents and sup­port its vic­tims, but what's need­ed is an ini­tia­tive that would make po­ten­tial do­mes­tic abusers think twice be­fore tak­ing ad­van­tage of the weak and en­cour­age more civ­il res­o­lu­tions to con­flict. It's time to pull the Per­manand Plan and put it to work.