Rhon­dor Dowlat

Trinida­di­an Cami­ka Mc Letchie, 43, who fi­nal­ly got the strength to walk out of an abu­sive 20-year do­mes­tic re­la­tion­ship is now in Croa­t­ia as her de­but doc­u­men­tary on her ex­pe­ri­ence has been ac­cept­ed in­to the Vox Fem­i­nae Fes­ti­val (Croa­t­ia Film Fes­ti­val).

A proud Mc Letchie be­fore she walked in­to the De­par­ture Lounge at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port ex­pressed dis­be­lief in the jour­ney she was just about to em­bark on. “I want to thank every­one who helped to fund my trav­el and al­so to pro­vide warm cloth­ing, al­so bpTT for all that they did for me for this trip.”

Mc Letchie, the lead pro­tag­o­nist in Break­ing the Cy­cle is ex­pect­ed to share her life sto­ry and speak out against do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at a screen­ing of the doc­u­men­tary to­mor­row (Sat­ur­day) in Za­greb.

The moth­er of sev­en, her chil­dren ages be­tween 24 and sev­en, can­did­ly opens-up about her ex­pe­ri­ences with aban­don­ment, rape and phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al abuse.

In an in­ter­view, Mc Letchie said she had a lot of friends who were al­so vic­tims and added that when one of her close friends—pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion host Mar­cia Henville, 51—was mur­dered in 2015, it prompt­ed her to form a non-gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tion “Rise” where she as­sist­ed just over 30 vic­tims with­in the first year. Henville was a vic­tim of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“I want­ed vic­tims to know that it is not the end of the world and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is not nor­mal and it should not be ac­cept­ed,” Mc Letchie said.

Mc Letchie called on the cit­i­zen­ry at large to stop be­ing judg­men­tal against vic­tims of do­mes­tic abuse and in­stead be sup­port­ive.

Mc Letchie al­so rec­om­mend­ed that safe hous­es ex­tend stays or lift lim­i­ta­tions to vic­tims who may have male chil­dren. She al­so rec­om­mend­ed train­ing and sen­si­ti­sa­tion of first re­spon­ders to sit­u­a­tions in­clud­ing para­medics, po­lice of­fi­cers, nurs­es and doc­tors.

She said, “I don’t know if it is but it should be made manda­to­ry for doc­tors and nurs­es to call in the po­lice in sus­pect­ed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence abuse cas­es,” she said.

The doc­u­men­tary was filmed as part of the “I am Cit­i­zen” cam­paign, a project of the Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme which is an ini­tia­tive un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, with the ob­jec­tive of re­duc­ing crime and vi­o­lence and cre­at­ing safer com­mu­ni­ties.

 Break­ing the Cy­cle was pro­duced by CM­B­Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and di­rect­ed by Span­ish Film­mak­er Miquel Galofre.

Mc Letchie’s doc­u­men­tary has al­so been en­tered in the 5 Fes­ti­val Monde en Vues in Guadaloupe on Oc­to­ber 14 and Mar­da Loop Jus­tice Film Fes­ti­val in Cana­da on No­vem­ber 13.