Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says his state­ments on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence dur­ing his Con­ver­sa­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter were mis­in­ter­pret­ed by some groups, who are now claim­ing he blamed mur­der vic­tim Ja­mil­ia DeReve­naux for the heinous act that took place at Movi­eTowne on Sun­day.

In a press re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day, Row­ley said in con­vers­ing with the peo­ple on Mon­day in Mal­oney, his state­ment had been "tak­en out of con­text."

He cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­ject­ed this in­ter­pre­ta­tion of his state­ment, say­ing his com­ments were made based on a state­ment from the au­di­ence which lament­ed that do­mes­tic vi­o­lence was so per­va­sive and hap­pen­ing with­in pri­vate spaces and in their homes.

"The Prime Min­is­ter, hav­ing al­ready re­spond­ed on the var­i­ous strate­gies to deal with vi­o­lence, fur­ther ad­vised that while he could pro­vide pro­tec­tion in the wider en­vi­ron­ment for women, he could not pro­vide such pro­tec­tion in the pri­vate spaces and lives.

"The Prime Min­is­ter, be­ing a fa­ther and grand­fa­ther and un­der­stand­ing the im­por­tance of the as­so­ci­a­tion we keep and our per­son­al well-be­ing, of­fered fur­ther em­pow­er­ing ad­vice to our women, by ad­vis­ing women that you have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to de­ter­mine who you as­so­ciate with and know when to get out," the press re­lease stat­ed.

He said as Prime Min­is­ter, he wants women to be em­pow­ered and to make smart choic­es.

"The Prime Min­is­ter does not blame the vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, but rather sym­pa­this­es with the vic­tims and the fam­i­lies of both the vic­tims and the per­pe­tra­tors. The Prime Min­is­ter is aware that such acts of vi­o­lence are a clear sig­nal for help by both vic­tim and per­pe­tra­tor," the re­lease stat­ed.

Row­ley said he was treat­ing with amend­ments to the leg­is­la­tion to of­fer greater pro­tec­tion to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tims and has pushed for women's is­sues from in­cep­tion.

The re­lease said be­cause of the im­por­tance of women and chil­dren's is­sues, the PM in­clud­ed this in his port­fo­lio at the OPM.

"The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter does not con­done do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and is do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to re­duce this scourge. The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter has been work­ing dili­gent­ly to en­sure that acts of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and all forms of gen­der-based vi­o­lence are re­duced sig­nif­i­cant­ly or elim­i­nat­ed from our coun­try by as­sid­u­ous­ly pur­su­ing strate­gic ob­jec­tives."

Some of the ob­jec­tives, the re­lease said, are to pre­vent, pun­ish and erad­i­cate gen­der-based vi­o­lence by cre­at­ing the in­sti­tu­tions and ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­ture for vic­tims and per­pe­tra­tors of gen­der-based vi­o­lence and build mu­tu­al re­spect be­tween men and women, im­prove the qual­i­ty of life of men, women, boys and girls at all lev­els of so­ci­ety, through the pro­mo­tion of gen­der eq­ui­ty and equal­i­ty, re­search and dis­sem­i­na­tion in­for­ma­tion on gen­der spe­cif­ic is­sues.

In or­der to achieve the stat­ed ob­jec­tives, the re­lease said the Gen­der Af­fairs Di­vi­sion con­tin­ues to de­vel­op projects and pro­grammes to ad­dress these is­sues, in­clud­ing a com­mu­ni­ty-based ac­tion plan to end gen­der-based vi­o­lence in T&T.

The re­lease urged the pub­lic, vic­tims or ob­servers to call the Na­tion­al Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Hot­line at 800-SAVE (7283) to re­port in­ci­dents of do­mes­tic and gen­der vi­o­lence, adding re­fer­rals can al­so be made for di­rect­ing the vic­tim to a place of safe­ty or shel­ter.

"We grieve with the pub­lic as we see this so­cial ill de­stroy­ing fam­i­lies, be­cause chil­dren and close re­la­tions are some­times caught in the do­mes­tic war. The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter will con­tin­ue our dri­ve to ad­vo­cate against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence for both men and women. We will con­tin­ue to build aware­ness and pro­mote strate­gies to pre­vent do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Elim­i­nat­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and pro­tect­ing vic­tims of such re­mains a core out­come," the re­lease con­clud­ed.