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  • 2 days ago
Domestic violence cases in Tobago have increased since the COVID 19 pandemic.

This from Special Investigator at the Special Victims unit of the TTPS Tobago Division, Damian Mills.
He spoke with TV6'S Elizabeth Williams in Scarborough, during observances of the 16 days of activism to end violence against all women and girls.
Transcript
00:00For example, on any given day, we would have at least two to three reports per day, all right?
00:06But we have reports happening every day.
00:09What we would have recognized is that since with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic,
00:15our reports in relation to domestic violence have increased,
00:19and they have been increasing, you know, as we go forward.
00:23So we are trying our very best to combat that in terms of conducting our inquiries,
00:27conducting investigations, but more than that, sensitizing the public.
00:31Officer Mills is encouraging more men to speak out against domestic violence inflicted on them by women.
00:39We are also trying to get our men to speak out a bit more and to come out and, you know,
00:44because we know that men are also victims of abuse.
00:47But we have recognized that there's sort of a taboo in relation to men coming out and saying,
00:53listen, I am or I have been a victim of domestic violence.
00:56You know, they are fearful of being laughed at and ridiculed,
00:59and so they tend to withdraw and not make, you know, not report,
01:03and they tend to continue living in that kind of pain.
01:05The Children's Authority collaborates closely with the Special Victims Department
01:09when called upon to provide support.
01:12When the children are in spaces that experience gender-based violence,
01:16it affects their development and how they grow up and, you know, how they move through their lives.
01:22So Children's Authority, we would work with them,
01:25and when those persons are removed, children are removed from those spaces, we step in.
01:30And, of course, children are only removed when it's the last resort.
01:34Meantime, Officer Mills is issuing words of caution to some citizens
01:39who are bent on breaking protection orders issued by the court.
01:42This comes on the heels of former IDA candidate, Tevin Duke,
01:47who was jailed on Wednesday for breaching three protection orders.
01:51All right, so a protection order is actually a court order,
01:54meaning it's a direct instruction of the court.
01:58No citizen has permission or the right to break or breach a directive of the court.
02:03And hence the reason if a male or female would have tried to
02:07or would have broken a protection order, that is a criminal offense.
02:09It's arrest one time, arrest forthwith, all right?
02:13So I would admonish our men out there,
02:15if, you know, God forbid that a protection order is served on you,
02:20please, you know, listen and understand that
02:23you cannot breach the grounds of a protection order,
02:26you cannot breach a protection order,
02:28because breach of protection order will result in you being arrested
02:31and taken before the court.
02:32Elizabeth Williams, TV6 News.
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