Geisha Kow­lessar

For 2012 to 2013 the sec­ond court of one mag­is­te­r­i­al dis­trict in north Trinidad han­dled 17,748 fam­i­ly and do­mes­tic mat­ters.This re­sult­ed in an av­er­age of 72 cas­es dai­ly, said Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Gen­der Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Razi­ah Ahmed at a na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion on the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act 1999, at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.For 2012 to 2013 there were 11,382 new cas­es of do­mes­tic abuse cas­es filed. This fig­ure re­flect­ed a 2.1 per cent de­crease when com­pared to 2011 to 2012, Ahmed said.Giv­ing a break­down of the calls, she said for 2012 to 2013 the na­tion­al do­mes­tic hot­line han­dled 997 new client calls, of which 767 were from women and 230 from men.

"For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to June 2014, there were 65 calls, of which 46 were from fe­males and 19 from males."The na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices Di­vi­sion dealt with 104 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 2013 to May 2014, in­clu­sive of re­fer­rals from oth­er agen­cies, call-ins and walk-ins," Ahmed said.Say­ing so­ci­ety was con­stant­ly chang­ing, she said it was the in­ten­tion of the Gov­ern­ment that leg­is­la­tion should re­main rel­e­vant and cur­rent and to the peo­ple.

She added: "The fam­i­ly is the most ba­sic unit of so­ci­ety. We are ful­ly com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing not on­ly the sur­vival of the fam­i­ly but the healthy and hap­py ex­is­tence of each mem­ber."We are fo­cused on the im­prove­ment of liv­ing con­di­tions and em­pow­er­ment of par­ents, youth and chil­dren."De­scrib­ing yes­ter­day's dis­cus­sions as very time­ly, she said that was es­pe­cial­ly so, giv­en the re­cent post­ing on Face­book of video footage of a moth­er beat­ing her son with a shov­el.Say­ing do­mes­tic abuse took nu­mer­ous forms, Ahmed said those in­clud­ed men­tal, phys­i­cal, sex­u­al, fi­nan­cial, emo­tion­al, psy­cho­log­i­cal abuse, and stalk­ing com­mit­ted by a per­son against a spouse, child or any oth­er per­son who is a mem­ber of the house­hold or de­pen­dant."This cov­ers a wide range of in­ter­ac­tions, in­clu­sive of in­ter­gen­er­a­tional–be­tween par­ent or grand­par­ent and child–as well as lat­er­al en­coun­ters, such as be­tween sib­lings or spous­es," Ahamed added.Yes­ter­day's con­sul­ta­tion was the first in a se­ries of pub­lic meet­ings to be host­ed through­out the coun­try to in­crease di­a­logue on neg­a­tive be­hav­iours that af­fect the fam­i­ly.Al­so speak­ing was Gai­etry Par­gass, the min­istry's le­gal con­sul­tant, who spoke about the act at length.

What was dis­cussed:

�2 The de­f­i­n­i­tion of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

�2 Who can make or­ders.

�2 Re­la­tion­ships that are cov­ered.

�2 Pro­tec­tion of chil­dren.

�2 Con­tent and ef­fect of a pro­tec­tion or­der.

�2 Cas­es in which a court must make an or­der.

�2 Du­ra­tion of pro­tec­tion or­der and in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der.