20 women murdered in 4 months

NATIONAL Security Minister Stuart Young has reported 20 women were murdered from January to April and five of the incidents were related to domestic violence.

He said this compared to 18 women murdered from January to April in 2018 for which ten were related to domestic violence.

"Those on this side do not see the issue of violence against women as a political football like those on the other side.

He was responding to a question in the House on Friday from Naparima MP Rodney Charles on what measures were being taken to address gender-based violence given that 23 women were murdered from January to April compared to 17 for the same period last year.

Young said the statistics in the question are false and not consistent with figures provided by the police.

"So once again we have coming from the member of Naparima a blatant, naked attempt to mislead the population of TT."

He listed a number of initiatives implemented by the police to address the issue of gender-based violence and randomly mentioned a number of former UNC MPs.

"Collaboration with community-based organisations to educate persons on how to deal with (Glenn Ramadharsingh) gender-based violence, a domestic violence procedure (Chandresh Sharma) order number 33 where all gender-based violence reports receive the necessary attention (Anil Roberts) and a domestic violence investigative and procedural manual for police officers in TT."

Police statistics report a total of 167 murders for the period January to April.