Women becoming more aggressive

And while it is well known that women feel shame and embarrassment which frequently keeps them from reporting domestic violence to the authorities, the participants were asked to imagine the plight of men who fear being ridiculed when reporting to the police that they are being abused by their wives, especially when the victim is a policeman himself .

Indeed, Snr Superintendent of Police Joanne Archie, who heads Police Tobago Division, told the women that for the first ten months of this year there have been nine hundred and ninety-one incidents of domestic violence reported to the police. She lamented that far too often the response to these incidents is too slow. She also said that often those responding underestimate how dangerous the situation is for the victim. She related one incident in which she dealt with a woman who was being abused .

She said she and the woman developed a plan to get her out of the situation but regretted that she acted too slowly and one day while shopping she heard on the radio that the woman and her daughter had been killed. “While I was in the store trying on the shoe, the twelve o’clock news came on and I heard a mother and daughter chopped to death in St. Margaret’s.” She said that she was shaken and had to sit down. The store attendant noticed her distress and asked whether she was all right but she responded that she was unable to talk at the moment .

“Because we were planning, we were planning to get her out.” She said that serving restraining orders on those committing acts of domestic violence merely makes the situation worse. She added that the issue of abused men is not adequately recognised, relating the case of one of her colleagues, a police officer, SRP Eric George, who confessed to her that he was being abused by his wife. George was said to be well-known for his single- handed campaign against drug traffickers in the late 1990s .

She said she was taken aback when the officer told her that he was being abused by his wife, but he showed some improvement through counseling. However, she said that one day he approached her and she was not able to listen to him. George later shot and killed his wife, Tara, and then killed himself .

Archie told the women: “People tell me ‘Well no, Joanne, there is only so much you can do,’ but I forgot him. And I feel that if I was able to speak with him, because I think that was the final straw, he reached out.” She said those two incidents have made her stress the importance of a swift response to incidents of domestic violence .

Gillian Wall, co-founder of the group, Powerful Ladies of Trinidad and Tobago (PLOTT), acknowledged that the Trinidad and Tobago society is a highly aggressive and violent one and that women have become a lot more aggressive .

“There are many homes across Trinidad and Tobago where the aggressor is the female and if there are so many women out there that feel ashamed to come out and say they are subject to violence, what do you think is happening to the men who are being abused?” She said that in the course of the day’s session, the participants were told of a case where the person being abused was a police officer that was being abused by his wife and the immediate response was laughter .

“So we need to become more emphatetic as a society, we need to understand that these are our sisters, our brothers, our neighbours. If we do not take care of our people, our people won’t take care of us. If a nation fails its people, it fails itself and we have got to do a better job.” The forum was held to commemorate the international day for the elimination of violence against women .