RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­tu­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe urged the pub­lic to ask deep­er ques­tions when check­ing in on oth­ers, say­ing a sim­ple “How are you do­ing?” is of­ten not enough to re­veal dis­tress or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. He en­cour­aged peo­ple to fol­low up with, “How are things at home?” to help un­cov­er con­flict that may oth­er­wise go un­seen.

He was speak­ing at a walkathon host­ed by Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al Es­per­ance, days af­ter at­tend­ing the fu­ner­al of Siparia coun­cil­lor Ra­mona Vic­tor. Vic­tor was beat­en to death by her part­ner, Rod­ney Ram­sumair, who lat­er took his own life on No­vem­ber 23.

Dr Bo­doe said Vic­tor vis­it­ed his con­stituen­cy of­fice short­ly be­fore her death. He said she ap­peared calm, raised no con­cerns about her per­son­al life, and on­ly dis­cussed work. He said some­one who met Vic­tor while she wait­ed to see him was aware she was fac­ing chal­lenges but did not share the in­for­ma­tion. He said al­though he could not say whether in­ter­ven­tion would have changed the out­come, re­lay­ing con­cerns re­mains es­sen­tial.

“When you ask, ‘How are you do­ing?’ peo­ple will say they are okay. The sec­ond ques­tion that needs to be asked is, ‘How are things at home? How is your fam­i­ly?’” he said. He en­cour­aged peo­ple to ob­serve fa­cial ex­pres­sions and oth­er be­hav­iour­al cues that may sig­nal dis­tress.

He re­mind­ed par­tic­i­pants that every­one has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to recog­nise warn­ing signs and sup­port those ex­pe­ri­enc­ing vi­o­lence. He al­so ref­er­enced the on­go­ing 16 Days of Ac­tivism Against Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence, which be­gan on No­vem­ber 25, and linked his ap­peal to the min­istry’s Step In­to Well­ness pro­gramme, which pro­vides men­tal health ser­vices. He said well­ness de­pends on men­tal health and en­cour­aged con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion in sup­port ini­tia­tives.

Sorop­ti­mist Pro­gramme Ac­tion Of­fi­cer Char­maine Latch­man-Singh said the walkathon formed part of the club’s ac­tiv­i­ties for the 16 Days of Ac­tivism, which run from No­vem­ber 25 to De­cem­ber 10. She said this year’s theme, “Unite to End Dig­i­tal Vi­o­lence Against All Women and Girls,” re­flects grow­ing con­cern about abuse through on­line plat­forms.

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Farah Ab­dul said dig­i­tal gen­der-based vi­o­lence in­cludes cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, sex­ting, sex­tor­tion and harm­ful mes­sages shared through so­cial me­dia, text or email. She said chil­dren are ex­posed to tech­nol­o­gy ear­ly and may en­counter un­safe be­hav­iour through gam­ing and apps, so aware­ness and dig­i­tal safe­ty ed­u­ca­tion are crit­i­cal.

Ab­dul out­lined ex­am­ples of on­line ha­rass­ment and said such at­tacks can cause se­ri­ous emo­tion­al harm, in­clud­ing sui­ci­dal thoughts in some cas­es.

She said mem­bers dis­played plac­ards and ban­ners with sup­port hot­lines, in­clud­ing 800-SAVE for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, 800-COPE for sui­cide pre­ven­tion, 999 for emer­gen­cies, and the TTPS cy­ber­crime unit for on­line of­fences.

She urged the pub­lic to re­port in­ci­dents and be cau­tious when shar­ing ma­te­r­i­al on­line, as dig­i­tal con­tent re­mains ac­ces­si­ble once post­ed.