Shas­tri Boodan

Chair­man of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion (EOC) Lynette See­baran-Suite has said that one in every three women are vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence

She made the state­ment in a brief in­ter­wier with Guardian Me­dia Ltd yes­ter­day as the EOC held a ral­ly against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at Cen­tre City Mall, Ch­agua­nas, to com­mem­o­rate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day.

See­baran-Suite said for 2020, nine women had died as a re­sult of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

She said while T&T had made progress in sev­er­al ar­eas when it came to deal­ing with the das­tard­ly act, not enough was be­ing done to deal with femi­cide or the killing of women.

She said she was still com­pelled to un­der­stand why a man felt he had the right to take a woman’s life when a re­la­tion­ship failed.

She said 8,000 ap­pli­ca­tions for pro­tec­tion or­ders were made an­nu­al­ly. She al­so stressed that sev­er­al changes had to be made in or­der to change the habits that some men dis­play to­wards women.

She said boys were so­cialised dif­fer­ent­ly from girls and this might be caus­ing the dis­play of un­to­ward be­hav­ior that some boys demon­strate to­wards girls.

See­baran-Suite said the EOC wants the pub­lic to be their sis­ters keep­ers and en­sure that they look out for per­sons who have a dif­fi­cul­ty with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and take the nec­es­sary mea­sures.

She said vi­o­lence against women and girls is an in­ter­na­tion­al oc­cur­rence that has plague women in male dom­i­nat­ed so­ci­ety.

She said T&T had not yet found a so­lu­tion that would see women who are vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­ing re­trained, em­ployed and se­cur­ing hous­ing for them­selves and their chil­dren.

Head of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce Vish­nu Char­ran al­so echoed See­baran-Suite’s call to look out for women who were abused.

He said do­mes­tic vi­o­lence af­fect­ed the lives of all par­ties in­volved and al­so im­pact­ed on the work en­vi­ron­ment.