“The hospital did not report it.
“What kind of culture are we living in?
“It is happening right here in your neighbourhood,”
she said.
She said domestic violence was “expensive” as it increased
absenteeism in the workplace and the person who was involved in
its acts found it hard to face others.
She said there were various ways to protect victims of the abuse
by using the law.
It included the Domestic Violence Act, the Offences Against the
Person Act, the Summary Offences Act, Malicious Damage Act, Larceny
Act, the Children Act, Sexual Offences Act and the Maintenance Orders
Act.
“It must not be forgotten,” she said, “domestic
violence is a criminal act. Emily Annamunthodo’s case of domestic
violence was classified.”
She said it could take the forms of child against parent, child
against grandparent or “anybody who you are living with on
a family basis.”
Mahabir-Wyatt, who heads the Trinidad and Tobago Coalition Against
Domestic Violence, said child prostitution was very prominent moreso
than theft and larceny; had more serious penalties.
“It does not take rocket science to figure out how people
learn violence.
“They learn from home. Once a child is exposed to violence
he/she sees how it is used to control people,” she said.
She opposed the beating of children in schools, saying that it broke
the synapses in connection in the brain and hampered productive
learning.
“I keep thinking how much better I would have learned things
without the use of corporal punishments in schools.
“I remember thinking adults were hypocrites because they said
that one must not hit those younger than you, yet they were hitting
us,” she said.
She added, however, that parents at the time were not to blame as
they did not know better.
The Legal Aid and Advisory Authority, she said, assessed a potential
client’s financial background.
The enforcement of the protective order was hard since there was
no longer a community police, she said.
“Now if we have 20 officers it is a lot.”
There are 15 kinds of protective orders and only one which removed
a person physically from the home, she stated, adding that the biggest
barrier is the failure to obtain a Children’s Authority Act,
since it has never been put into effect.
“We are building new stadiums instead, while children are
being bothered,” she said.
Mahabir-Wyatt said in the Mt. Hope facility there was only one qualified
physiotherapist out of 12 councillors who are operating there.
She mentioned the military and police officers that used violence
to control others.
“Under stress, people forget they cannot use violence and
they transfer their anger.
“Many of these people who do it hate themselves afterwards,”
she said.
“A lot of people use marriage as a license to kill or beat
their spouses,” she claimed.
“Many abused persons do not trust the police. They trust the
community police and in my experience Legal Aid,” she said.
She called for more public education to be implemented throughout
the country while Secretary of the Legal Aid and Advisory Authority
Nancy Arneaud, said in most instances whenever someone applied for
Legal Aid it was granted.
“It is at the discretion of the magistrate to request that
a Means Test Form be filled out,” she said.
The Legal Aid offices, she said, pro-vide assistance to both the
accuser and the defender.
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