The law needs to change to allow police to arrest abusers, even without a complaint from the victim, once there is sufficient evidence.
This is the view of the head of the Victims and Witness Support Unit of the Police Service Margaret Sampson-Browne, the International Women’s Resource Network (IWRN) and women’s rights activist Tara Ramoutar.
The change is being called for after a video surfaced online last week showing a woman being beaten with a steel object and being kicked in her head and stomach by a man, who it turns out she’s in a relationship with.
However, the woman, after walking into the Arouca Police Station with her alleged abuser, refused to co-operate further with police after giving an initial statement.
In an interview last week, Sampson-Browne said there was a need for the Domestic Violence Act to be amended to empower officers to lay criminal charges when there was clear material evidence even if the virtual complainant was unwilling to allow police to bring charges against the attacker.
She said as things stood, the police could not make much progress unless a victim filed charges against his or her attacker.
She said if the offence was committed in the view of an officer, that officer could make an arrest but, she added, if the victim refused to support the police in the prosecution, then the police would have some challenges in taking a matter to the court.
Another voice calling for change was Ramoutar, head of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA).
In a telephone interview yesterday, Ramoutar said she felt Parliament should look at ways to change the law to offer women more protection.
She said, however, she understood the position of police officers.
“How can you charge someone if the person who was hurt refuses to lay a charge against them? You can’t force someone to do what they don’t want to do,” Ramoutar said.
Referring to the video, shared thousands of times on social media, Ramoutar said it was the woman’s right to bring charges against her abuser.
“It is sad but it clearly shows that some women do not want to come out of these situations. The law needs to be changed so that people will know you cannot treat human beings that way,” she added.
She said she sympathised with the young woman but added that abuse was not something you should take and be comfortable and content with.
“I thought we had moved away from treating people as property about 100 years ago,” she said.
One woman, who contacted the T&T Guardian to share her story, said it was important for victims to keep that right and responsibility to empower themselves by speaking out.
She recalled: “I was abused by my husband for more than ten years and it was after I left him that he came back and beat me and stabbed me.
“I could have died. I didn’t. I called the police. I think it is important for the survivor to have that choice.”
The International Women’s Resource Network (IWRN) also called on Government to rethink urgently its position on gender-based violence and collaborate with stakeholders to develop mechanisms to address the problem from both the perpetrators’ and victims’ perspective.
“Such mechanisms will minimise condemnation of both perpetrator and victim, which has been the norm for years, and instead give the issue the attention that it deserves,” it said.
The group said expressions of anger were sometimes signs of issues which have negatively impacted individuals in the past. Such individuals needed assistance through counselling support, the group said.