TT Chamber to report on domestic violence policy in 6 months

THE TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce has given itself a six-month deadline to measure the initial effect of a policy developed to change the way companies look at and treat with domestic violence in the workplace.

The chamber launched the draft of that policy today at its offices in Columbus Circle, Westmoorings.

Imshah Mohammed, head of the team that drafted the policy, and a member of the Crime and Justice Committee of the chamber, said after being made aware of staggering statistics on domestic violence, the chamber could not stand by and let employees who may work in companies which are part of its membership continue to experience domestic violence.

“In May 2018 the TTPS announced that in 2017 there were 1,100 reports of domestic violence, and even more disturbing, there were 43 murders linked to domestic violence.

"Two days later we saw the publication of the Inter-American Development Bank-funded national health survey for women in TT, which indicated that 30 per cent of women in TT will be subject to domestic violence in their lifetime. This is a ridiculous figure,” Mohammed said. “We felt that we just couldn’t just let things continue as they were.”

Mohammed said the chamber intends to share the 11-page document among its members and ask them to incorporate it into their own HR policies.

The chamber also intended to encourage other chambers to buy into the policy and assist all stakeholders in implementing it.

Mohammed said the chamber will also measure the effect of the policy and report to the public .

“Give us six months and we will have a document for you guys saying this is what we have done and this is our results,” Mohammed said.

All stakeholders and members agreed the policy was an excellent step, but it was also agreed that monitoring and quantifying its effect is also important.

Dr Gabrielle Hosein, head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies, said, however, not all the feedback needed to be quantitative, but could also be qualitative.

“What (would) people report as the change in the culture in the relations in silences and the access to institutional support?

"In the Caribbean we do a lot of excellent work on violence against women, but very little of it accompanied by monitoring and evaluation. So we can’t build modules out from excellent examples like this and scale them up regionally, and if we want to do that, I think building in that qualitative report is key.”

The draft document is intended to provide immediate assistance to victims of domestic violence with information referrals to support resources, institutionalise responsive policies to help employees who are affected by violence, help employees who are perpetrators to hold them accountable for their behaviour and teach supervisors and leaders to identify traits of abuse and take action.