EOC wants changes in domestic violence act

Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) chairman Lynette Seebaran-Suite is of the opinion that “predictable tragedies” such as the Abigail Chapman murder could have been prevented had police officers acted decisively and had the Domestic Violence Act been strengthened by ten “legislative and policy amendments” as had been suggested at a public forum last November.

Chapman, her daughter, Olivia, 16, and Olivia’s school friend Mickela Mason and landlord Michael Scott were found murdered at Scott’s La Brea house last Tuesday.

In a media statement yesterday, Seebaran-Suite condemned the “recent spate of gender-based related deaths” and noted that in 2017 of the fifty-two women murdered, forty-three had been due to domestic violence, while over fifteen deaths have been recorded for the first quarter of 2018.

She noted that while the Domestic Violence Act is a “progressive piece of legislation,” there is a need to “amend or enforce its provisions to zero tolerance, to provide further protection for victims and higher efficiency in enforcement.

“As such, in November 2017, the EOC proposed ten (10) legislative and policy amendments to the Act, at a public forum jointly hosted with the UWI Institute for Gender Development Studies commemorating the sixteen (16) days of activism on ending gender-based violence.”

The proposed amendments include the removal of the perpetrator from the home, not the victim, as well as amending the definition of cohabitant to include same-sex relationships.

In addition, police must respond to all complaints and must charge for assaults and other crimes committed in domestic situations and for breaches of protection orders.

The EOC also recommended that people charged with breaches of protection orders would not be eligible for bail.

Several new sections were also created including the provision of a network of support to people who have a protection order while observers must have a duty to report.

The EOC said an intervention must be provided for perpetrators threatening to kill while creating inter-agency protocols between police, magistrates, prosecutors, social workers and shelters.

Mandatory programmes for victims and perpetrators should also be created while the Police Domestic Violence Register should be reinstituted.

Seebaran-Suite said, “We believe that had these protocols been in place and a more appropriate police response forthcoming, all too predictable tragedies such as the Abigail Chapman murder could have been averted.

“Abuse in any form against any man, woman or child should not be tolerated. The EOC, therefore, reiterates its plea for these proposals to be considered as amendments to the Domestic Violence Act, in an effort to protect and safeguard our women and children from the scourge of domestic violence.

“We call on the Honourable Attorney General & Minister of Legal Affairs to expedite these proposed amendments as a matter of urgency, to better respond and prosecute domestic violence as a criminal act, as we believe that the amendments will effect real change and prevent future domestic violence deaths.”

Efforts to contact Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi were unsuccessful.