so as I said we just finished watch um goes from the valley and I want to introduce Renee King the actor and Ariana Muhammad the director we'd just like to hear from you all your motivation and intention and creating this piece of work all right hi everyone good evening I I assume you can hear me yes yes yes okay wonderful so hi hi everyone Hi Ariana oh bye this was I think a really special project for both Ariana and myself initially it was brought to us to be done as a part of theater and even
tually you were able to film it so before I speak I would like Ariana and how we went about creating the space okay hi good night everyone I'm Ariana Muhammad and I wrote and directed the piece um so what initially happened was that Marcus Waldron another theater practitioner along with Albert Smith um who is one of the Venezuelan people that immigrated here um he's also an actor and they came together and they formed the micro theater Festival of Trinidad and Tobago and through their ideas they
got a number of people on board and for the first Festival the idea was to create 15 minute short pieces that captured the Venezuelan experience in Trinidad um some pieces that have looked at xenophobia um probably as well I believe you know the Journey of coming here and Crossing you know the book the Boca style Dragon um and my piece was a little different um you know as a woman you're conscious of a lot of things and um I had heard about a number of stories where a woman came here and they w
ere engaging in sex work um some were doing it voluntarily of their own free will as a way to supplement their income because obviously they were not making a lot of money is they were not legal here um and they obviously wanted to send money back home to support their family some people they came here and they came behind the false pretenses where people would have promised them citizen jumps and you know assistance and when they came here they realized that what it is it was not what they sign
ed up for so the idea about the piece is to really capture the experiences of both of those women because whether you engage in something willingly or unwillingly doesn't matter but there's always a risks to the profession itself and um when that is one of the risks because it's not regulated in Trinidad and Tobago is not legal here so these women even though they're engaging and they're they're doing but it's they have no protection um against you know all the forces that may be and so both wom
en are exposed to being abused um physically mentally sexually specifically um and so we really you know that's what it is I wanted to highlight about the experience because it's something that is not talked about as much um we see a lot of newspaper articles talking about them coming here coming in through seadras coming through our boards you know how do we curb this wave of my own you know variously love migrants coming into our boards we've seen that but we haven't seen the plights of these
people specifically of these women who come here just seeking a better life trying to seek refuge and get away from very hard life and a hard place somewhere none of us would want to be and defeat the titles that they face here so that was the intention um and it kind of took off from there I personally when it is I conceived of the piece I didn't want it to have any words I don't think there's any words that can describe somebody who hasn't had the experience they have no words to describe thei
r experience about that you know um being a victim of assault you know a mental and physical abuse the thing is we can always try to describe and we can always try to put it into words but I do not think there are words to really describe what that person feels in that moment um and so that that's where my mind was at um but there were no real words and I just wanted the audience to have a visceral experience to have oh um so you said something sorry it just broke up it was just telling you than
k you for sharing that um the intention behind the film and why the they were there um I want to go across quickly to Renee right because we had quite a delays so we want to move ahead a little bit quickly but thank you again Ariana and again Ariana is the director of the film mangoes from the valley and we'll now be hearing briefly from the actor herself Renee King all right so good evening again everyone uh this experience was very I would say very enlightening I don't think as Ariana would ha
ve said it's a story that a lot of people play mine to I think we are very judgmental society and whether it be sexual abuse whether it be mental emotional or physical abuse I think it's something that we just don't speak about enough so highlighting those issues in the film it really it stuck with us I would say it stuck with me quite a bit and it was very enjoyable I would say to embark on the experience of telling the story one that I have not done so we experienced um personally but I would
say it's given voice in a different way to trauma and also to allow you know just Society to understand the Judgment really doesn't it really doesn't progress our nation because we judge these women or these victims and we don't see them as victims and I think having to step into that role it really allowed for me to step into that role mentally and I think if a lot of persons even if they never you know create a film like this or they never went back or not you in any way I think if you can ste
p into issues of someone else it really does allow you to have an appreciation to the life that you have and also brings a level of awareness that you won't judge someone based on decisions they make or who they are in society because you never know what anyone faces but most times it's that a lot of people don't have a voice to speak about what they are going through whether it be sexual you know emotional mental physical um whatever type of abuse you'll be in faced with so as it pertains the g
ender-based violence women have you know a varying amount of things coming against them and you know there will be a plus so that we put on it and they say well you know just suck it up or you know and I think being able to tell this story to say that because you can't judge a person you don't know what they have to face or what they have to go through and I think it really it was a strong story to tell and I'm glad we were able to um it allowed for me to embark on some personal um I would say p
ersonal work and do not work to start working one a piece and I thank Ariana and Daniel and all who would have contributed so you know allowing us at space to to create something and then put it into a film so even this platform it's it's um a pleasure to be here and to be able to share this space to discuss to discuss these a series So yeah thank you thank you so much running thank you very much for that we wants to head into our discussion about gender-based violence but before that before I d
o that let me just again introduce myself because we may have you know some people now coming on so my name is Jewel Green George I am the chairperson of civil TT and you are viewing conversations on gender-based violence we are in the middle of our 16 days of activism campaign so mandated by the United Nations and this this is geared towards ending gender-based violence across the globe we're heading into our discussion now and I want to introduce our panelists we have officer Mills and we also
also have as I'm looking around High merch so we have mercy Thomas I'm going to be just reading their bios after which they'll introduce themselves and we'll start the discussion tonight so we have Miss Marishka Thomas and she's a former student of the University of the Southern of the Southern Caribbean where she graduated as an honor student with her Bachelor of Science in Psychology she's also an avid writer for the Tobago musli she writes articles which address socialism decisions in additi
on is a conflict resolution where trans individuals in understanding different aspects of the cells and their lifestyle choices which may be contributing factors to various conflicts the experience in their daily life all while equipping them with tools to navigate these challenges she also facilitates individuals resolving office personal and school conflicts that need a clue welcome marushka Thomas next we have Nana has been she is one of the directors of civil that's Caribbean woman in leader
ship Regional engineer and she is the founder and executive director of shida sustainable development Solutions limited professional nationally known by her middle name Nana she is a social Economist and gender expert with over 21 years of international experience acquired in the Caribbean Africa and the United Kingdom and the Americas to her it is a unique pleasure to affect the lives and Advocate on behalf of persons who want to advance change in their countries communities and institutions sh
e has a masters in economic and social studies in management development she specializes in a poverty reduction and sustainable livelihoods from the University of Wales UK and she also has two Bachelor of Arts degrees in economics and French with a minor in preload from the Indiana the University of Pennsylvania she's a director of Myrtle Place which is a domestic violent shelter in Trinidad and Tobago and she serves as the regional board coordinator slash secretary for Caribbean women in leader
ship welcome Nano we also have another in August I'm full he has served as a police motorcyclist up to 2005 before becoming a detective of the child protection unit which now forms part of the special victims Department Tobago division we welcome officer Mills with us this afternoon we just want to get into the discussion and we're here to discuss gender-based violence what it is what you think it is what exactly is you know some of the consequences and more but we just want to open up the floor
to the panelists um director Nana marushka farmers and office Mills to just give us your feelings in terms of the film and the topic that we're discussing this evening what did you get from this and how did it move or touch you director Nana do you want like to go first would you like to go first feel free to call me sister Nana no problem at all right um it was quite traumatic watching the movie and hearing the actress and the director talk about their visualization and concept for presenting
the movie explained a lot really what was being shown cannot be described in words it was painful to watch in a way certain parts of it that also tells us the pain and the trauma that persons who are involved in gender-based violence have to experience the survivors whole ordeal the feelings about cells you could see that you know wherever she they only saw this where she was getting was and eating a mango and life on a daily basis throughout was just painful that's that's my observations for no
w and I'll let the others see well um for me it is indeed traumatic and you know from the police perspective we never we never really get the chance to see an issue a matter of gender-based violence actually happening the police actually coming after you know the fact and a report is made and you know we conduct our investigation and bring perpetrators before the court and soon to answer according to law but seeing it for his hand even though it's a film it actually speaks to what persons you kn
ow would have gone through or actually Argos at this point in time and it's a really Awakening um experience for me as a police officer and for anyone else that's in the actual business you know of um the law and listening or having to listen to persons explaining from their perspective what they would have gone through you know as a victim of gender-based violence and it speaks so much to the the fact that you know the gender-based violence and domestic violence is actually real and it affects
everybody and I'm happy to be you know a part of the panel this afternoon this this evening and to see your film you know that depicts gender-based violence you know in in all in all its um circumstances and so on so it's it's it's it's it's Awakening for me to be a part of this and to see what what persons actually go through for me but it was even without words it was able to clearly transmit the message of the victim having no autonomy with myself and you saw when she came back home every day
she was spitting so she was studying she was feeling disgusted by the actor she had to do he could see while the Act was happening she called on her religious State and when she was looking to leave she threw the necklace which to me said that even that while she was going through the event she pulled on it but nothing happened so after that she felt us so she she she she didn't have poop that is what you transmitted to me there's a lot of persons going through these things they make you who ar
e blessed they may not have the resources to leave because she left home she packed up everything whatever little she had which is when when persons come over migrants come over but they don't really have much so she picks up whatever little she had in an attempt to leave but she came back because the resources are so little or non-existent that she was not able to even get out of her her situation yeah so a lot of migrants are experienced and not not just migrants but generally persons who are
victims of gender abuse violence less of them are in some depressing situations and those some persons may look okay they are really not doing well that is thank you for that panel um I would ask me um everything that was shared I think we all felt it collectively and it's you know it's amazing that everybody had something different that they felt and that they got from CNB and that's the power of art to bring a story to you and that you now feel and see and understand something different than t
hey do some who's sitting right next to you looking at it I want to bring this question to before because a lot of times when we talk about gender-based violence people assume that you understand all that because I'm talking about it understands what they're discussing so I just want to start with a very basic question what is violence all right so gender-based violence is basically when an individual is being targeted for a particular violence act based solely on the fact of the agenda so let's
take things in society now we have the issue of patriarchy a lot of people they go in on that topic right and we see that a lot in places like India where they tend to Humana has been Superior to women so in that case women are not targeted because a lot of men know that if they do anything nothing will happen to them so women in their attention to experience a lot of other violent acts let me just put it right back but there aren't systems in place to assist them adequately because of how Soci
ety views women in that region in in addition to that you know gender-based violence is this disproportionate meaning there's always uh it is not fear there's always the stronger um personal perpetrator praying or attacking the weaker one you know normally if you have a normal report you know two two guys who have hadn't had an argument or disagreement you know that would be two men but in gender-based violence is actually the Stronger versus the weaker and that's what we have been seeing you kn
ow within the Police Service uh majority of the reports coming into our office it's the male versus the female the male is um attacking the female perpetrating violent acts against a female and so on but nevertheless we also must consider the fact that men are also victims of um gender-based violence there are circumstances in one it has become a bit taboo because they are circumstances where men would come in and they they would report being victims of gender-based violence and domestic violenc
e and so on but they are asking not to say anything about it or not to put it out there because as a man you are not expected to be a victim you are more expected to be the aggressor and that is one of the things that you know Society has you know gone into believing that it's more about the women being the victims but men are also victims so it's mostly you know the um the the stronger or the the the the aggressor it's not about persons you know of equal ability or fear matchups you know the St
ronger versus the weaker male versus female or female versus male so it's very disproportionate when it comes to gender-based violence and domestic violence you know speaking in general terms yeah I want to agree with my colleagues on their definitions or aspects of gender-based violence that they have shared it is about power and control at the end of it it's one person exerting power and wanting to control another person based on the agenda and here in this sense we're talking about gender ine
quality and that is the Crux of it and so because of that it becomes power control it we've seen it as gender-based violence because I feel I have more power over you I feel I have more strength than you I exert power over you and so in our parts of the world we don't even need to go as far as India it happens and paycheck is real in the Caribbean real in Trinidad and Tobago because a lot of women are getting killed a lot of women are being thrown with acid or being chopped up based on the fact
that they are women and because also men feel that the men who perpetrate this violence feel that they can exert power over them and one thing I love about you know using the term Survivor instead of victim is that yes we know that a victim would have experienced you know some sort of trauma or somebody who is you know going through something but when you say somebody is a Survivor that means that the person has actually lived through a traumatic experience and is still alive or they're going th
rough it and that is what many of these women are survivors as as um Marishka was sharing you know the in the film The Lady try to look okay go about their business and many of us work with men and women you know especially a lot of women who come to work but are going through this but we don't know it's like a silent killer they're just surviving it and so for me the basics of um gender-based violence is all the aspects that my colleagues have spoken about but we cannot forget the aspect of pow
er and control and also I'm looking at it from as a gender inequality issue yes thank you for that panelists I I want to make sure that we pay attention to certain aspects of what we're discussing this evening and one of the aspects I think that we want to walk away with in what gender-based violence is or what it can constitute it is the idea of power and control inequality and the fact that one person does not have the power while another person has all the power almost every Power so we're de
aling with an inequal power Dynamic and the desire to control a personal situation and when you think about that um you know officer Mills brought up an issue that we don't talk about a lot and not just that men experience gender-based violence but what we want to discuss is who else is affected because sometimes we do look at you know it's just the woman you know this is a singular situation she's the only one experiencing this issue and being affected by it but we want to just look for a minut
e at all the players in this situation not just the perpetrator and Survivor such a victim but we want to look at the other players because this affects our community and I just want to hear from the panelists in terms of the effects on it this is not a singular problem this is something that could be it leaps into every area of Our Lives that is correct yeah and you know as as was said earlier I would have started working at the child protection unit before that said unit became a part of the g
ender-based violence unit and what we have discovered is that the children you know when there are children involved in a situation where you know the parents uh well the appearance uh foreign of domestic violence the children tend to suffer the most and what has been happening is that children because you know of what they believe within the home and the discussions that they are having within the home they would not say anything about it but it affects them you know directly and indirectly and
they would go to school they would go to the playground they would go to the parks they would go they would go out and the effect that it is having on the children would manifest you know among their peers they would start exhibiting certain types of behaviors within the school system within the classroom they would start being aggressors themselves in one reports would be made and it is only when the police get involved and we ask the question and we delve deep into the situation we recognize
that listen these children are victims of domestic violence and more than that they are their parents the mother or the father is absolutely victims of domestic violence within the home so we would have to treat with the entire family now as opposed to just treating with the child so I want to I want to talk about or focus on the children within these homes that actually suffer the most some of these children when we go to the homes we have to take them away from the home save them from the situ
ation sometimes they are in imminent danger of the violence that take place within the home you know so it's a it's a real situation and we have to really look at it from all angles more so the children that are involved in these situations within these homes yeah well if I wanted um go ahead um apart from just women I would say that even co-workers are also affected when their co-worker is experienced in domestic violence with the way that they may well they their performance are good in May de
crease when the performance at the increases that also impact the company for the businesses right which is you may not come to a pretty best attitude you may not interact well with the other staff members that in itself you're bringing that kind of potency upload in the workplace because of what is happening to you it may not be intentional but it's happening because a situation is happening so if you interact negatively with your customers it also impacts the business as well so it's not it's
not an individual problem yes it's happening to one person but like you said previously the community and people in the workplace are a part of the community they assist and and only assists you in your situation if they know what is happening if they're able to identify these signs because as previously said a lot of people are walking around looking quite normal we're going to work we're getting up we're trying to function as normal as possible but you can see little cracks when we have to spe
ak to someone or when we have to react to a certain situation we may not react as fast or we may not react the best so you may shout out somebody and everybody has to be like why you why are you being like that it's not because you're angry with the person or anything but you have an underlying issue that you're dealing with and you are venting in an inappropriation you know so the workplace is also affected by an individual going through gender-based violence I just want to say thank you for sh
aring that yes it's not just the individual that is going through the abuse that is affected it affects the home including the children and even extended family because many a time when these cases do occur and eventually lead to death you would hear the aunt the grandmother the neighbor saying you know we used to hear noises or we told them to leave but they didn't leave so obviously it affects them but another area which it affects is National development because tax payers money goes into the
health cost goes into pain victim support unit we actually have to set up a unit for gender-based violence we also have to look at these specialized services such as support care you know be it for Ministry of Social transformation that has to give special attention to the women who are survivors those the cost that goes into setting up a shelter providing these women with support the cost of child protection and family services that the survivors children have to go through and so it is not on
ly just personal cost to the Survivor itself but also National cost which gives our GDP a lower value because here we are expending currency expending Monies to address gender-based violence because it is such a big big problem across the region and so I would move it from Beyond the the home to even affecting the state and National development and I believe um Trinidad and Tobago is actually working on the cost economic cost of violence against women I'm sure the reports will come out very soon
where we will see how violence against women really affects our GDP and National development that is that is an extremely important point and not that we're looking at cost or money being more important than the human um the traumata human being but when we look at it from a dollar perspective now we get to see the bigger picture what's happening because once it affects the money of the country it also affects what the country can do in terms of development in terms of where they have to spend
their money and now we have to look at remedial care how are we going to fix and help and support victims and even those the victims survivors not just them but the extended family their children how are you not going to support them and I am sure that officer Mills sees that first hand in terms of the you know people coming in and Reporting and trying to get them the help that they need and Mariska from a conflict resolution point of view in terms of having to know you know speak to people abou
t how we're going to navigate issues that may be triggering to us we want to talk about domestic violence we don't want to leave out the um you know who it affects and who it infects right because this is something that's going to grow with the community and grow with the children and we're looking at the economic aspect of it but we also want to talk about some of the reforms domestic violence teams right we want to look at it because once you are able to articulate it now we can look for it in
a in our environment now we can pay attention to what's happening and what we need to do in terms of um stopping it we want to identify it first so I just want to open the floor to the panelists could you all talk to us a bit about some of the various forms of domestic violence because it's not only um you know physical Blues a Busan what are some of the forms that you all are seeing the domestic violence yes of course um sorry all right well from the legal from a legal perspective and within t
he armies of the law and so on and the domestic violence Act um demonstrate so it depicts the meaning of domestic violence and it says that domestic violence actually includes several areas for example there's sexual abuse there's psychological abuse there's a whole physical aspect of physical abuse there's emotional abuse emotional abuse you know you're using um disrespectful language obscene language you are attacking you know with you the use of woods you know the victim you're telling them a
ll sorts of things the name calling right um sexual abuse you know persons taken or causing or forcing victims to engage in certain sexual acts even though they might be or they will be or they are against or not willing to take part in these acts they are being forced to take part in these sexual acts and so on this financial abuse as well where the perpetrator or as the law enforce them as a respondents they would withhold money and you know the whole history of control all of this has to do w
ith controlling the other party you know so you would withhold money you would withhold finances and so on and so domestic violence actually is a broad umbrella that encompasses so much and there's so many instances where a person can be found guilty you know of allegedly perpetrating the act of domestic violence against a victim by you know just by mere actions or mere Woods or mere in actions or you know lack of um taking certain actions you know and this is all within the armies of the law an
d spawn so domestic violence is wide and it encompasses a lot in terms of what a person can do to perpetuate the act of domestic violence so it's not only physical yeah one thing I want to highlight from the sexual abuse part is that even though because a lot of persons would say but you all are married so if you all are married and will have sex but it's legal like you know it it can't be illegal there's something called my salary umbrella of gender-based violence you are in the home you are ma
rried and it's something that's seen as consensual normal activities for once even though you're married even though even though you're married once as you are not willing to do the activity I think it's it's good that people are aware that you know martaways as you officer would have said where the victim is now not allowed to meet their basic needs to normal toiletries things that you need on a daily basis the perpetration takes away your means of procure in those items whether they stop you f
rom working or they cause you to to get fired from your job you know by going around and they miss at the spread rumors things like that can cause you to get fired a number of things persons would do when they are in the quest of abuse when when they are doing it and their intent that you should be there they do so many different things and it affects you in so many different ways and just to touch back a bit on the whole um aspect of his sexual abuse there's a lot of persons that are unaware th
at even though uh okay let's see a husband and wife and the wife would have consented in the initial stages to this sexual act and so on but if during the midst of the ACT she says no or stop if the husband refuses to stop it becomes illegal and he can also be charged for you know um perpetrating a rape against his wife so once there's the whole aspect of no at any time before or during the other party must respect and accede to the wishes of the the victim or the person that has saying no so we
must make that known and make a person instead become fully aware that is very very easy the perpetrate you know domestic violence in relation to that whole issue of sexual you know the sexual act and sexual involvement it is very easy and there's a lot of persons as you know my colleagues Thomas would have said they might believe okay we are married so there's no choice you know what you are mine I paid sometimes you say I pay attention or in England Revenue I pay 15 dollars but they're actual
ly serious they believe that this person is actually their property they own that person they control that person and so because of that thought they believe that they can do whatever they want whenever they wanted that person but this is so wrong right so people need to be aware you know that it is wrong and we need to really look into it and deal with it on a personal basis yeah I want to agree on that comment you know that marital rape is real and it is a crime but also sometimes you know esp
ecially as you're looking at the younger generation now to not only limit domestic violence according to the law to only physical sexual financial and emotional because the law also goes further to even say that you know persistently following somebody from place to place you can bring a charge against the person if you're if you're forced or confined by by someone you can bring a charge you know and depriving somebody of using their own property you know I mean that is the beauty about this I m
ean because the domestic violence law law was amended and the legislation actually makes it clear what you can bring a charge on somebody for and I think that's if persons will take the time to look at it you know if someone is depriving of using your your property if somebody's persistently telephone in you you know or your place of work or your residence and you don't want it in some places they'll call it their stock in you you can ring a charge against these persons so apart from the areas t
hat they've mentioned I just wanted to highlight those as well that these are also real forms of domestic violence that persons can be abused of and they can bring charges against their perpetrators who exhibit these traits foreign so we are seeing that some of the forms of domestic violence can be you know inaction as officer Mill said as well as an action not respecting when a person is seeing no when it comes to um sexual um interaction if even in a marriage the person says no before or durin
g that person can bring you know bring charges against the other person if they don't respect the new even before during and in a marriage so I want to make sure we remember those things and the financial aspects of it as well because some persons don't know as officer Mills pointed out right they're not aware that marital read is only books and perhaps we can do a part two where we look at the law at what the Amendments as Nana is bringing to us what the amendments may be in terms of what is is
not allowed so that you know what your rights are and how you can stand up for yourself right because as she pointed out as well it's not just that you know your victim you went through this you can't survive this and part of the survival process for many people is facing the perpetrator and bringing them to justice making them have to feel the consequences of their actions and I like that officials I've never heard that one before I paid ten dollars at the registry for you that's a new one yes
yes it's real it's real we hear it all the time because even in in interviewing uh would be put or let's perpetrators officers mine she belongs to me you know your hear these comments and these comments have been made in ignorance you know they actually believe that you know a person can be owned and it's really it's really interesting to see how people think and when you say what you think you will understand okay why or one of the reasons one of the things that formed the basis for the whole
perpetuating of domestic violence and all the other areas of violence that take place within the home is based on how these these perpetrators think and what they believe and also it's really really interesting talking to these people listening to the only thing the things they do and why they say the things that they say so it's really interesting yes and I really think I'm gonna return to that point you brought up um inspector Mills which we're looking at motivations and intentions why domesti
c violence is being perpetrated because it plays a very important rule in the solution right and we want to look at that before we close off um so I want to just bring to the floor I just want to read some statistics um that the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service had put out for 2022 um and there were comparing free and of course covered well we say post you know put on food because we're still living it so they were comparingly pre and during covert figures in terms of domestic violence and I'm
just gonna read these um statistics here so March 2018 to March 2020 there were 2710 domestic violence cases reported however for the period of March 2020 to March 2022 um the figures Rose significantly by 230 percent to 6250 reports so in during the covet period we went from 2710 domestic violence case reports to 6250 reports in Trinidad and Tobago and just to break that down a little further we have that Trinidad and Tobago is divided into nine districts according to the Trinidad and Tobago P
olice Service report and those nine districts out of those nine districts we had in Tobago and I'm focusing there because we know that Tobago's population um if we're looking at um compared to different areas in the different districts we know that Tobago has a small population compared and tobago-round food with um uh number 848 reports coming out of Tobago out of the nine districts so out of the nine districts Tobago around third and I'm not saying that to um to I you know I to point them out
like this but it I'm just pointing out how pervasive and prep people and this problem is we need to take a serious look at domestic violence and what's happening in Trinidad and Tobago and as we're discussing it it is a real issue and we want to make sure that people understand the gravity of what's Happening um so we just want to quickly go into a discussion about coven we have um domestic violence and gender-based violence has a context to it it changes form and shape depending on what's happe
ning with a community with a country we're talking about the digital age and now part of gender-based violence is people putting um pictures intimate photos that they've taken with or without the consent of their partner on um you know for the for sharing to embarrass and to call shame and so on and we want to talk about you know what is happening with covid how it the context and the numbers and the the effect how it has been exacerbated during covert so I'm opening the floor to the panelists f
irst to talk about the effect that proven has had on the issue of gender-based violence one one aspect would be when when we had lockdowns and persons had to stay confined to their houses being in that confined space with your spouse let's see you all would have already been experiencing intimate partner violence no the fact that the person perpetuates any violence cannot leave you know find you as more of a Target so the events the anger or or the issues unto you more no because there isn't an
Avenue such as like before him let's say maybe they would have gone to the ram shop or they would have gone to play football or want to hang out with friends because of the restrictions they are so there is no other Avenue for them to let out that extra stress or worries so now instead of it being outside they are not targeting you right and you also are confined to the home so you can't leave you can't go to a therapist office as you would have done previously you know you can't visit your frie
nds you can't have a break from the abuse so no he he said oh he's here you hear you know depending on who whoever is the aggressor you all are both confined to this space so it and in some cases even if abuse was not happening before during the lockdown some persons will have started to learn their partner whereas before they were able to leave to say good morning good night that kind of thing and leave uncle about your own business Junior lockdown you were forced to have to interact with this
person and in some cases the abuse would have started then remember we are dealing with the situation that is fueled by gender inequality by power and control in a very toxic patriarchal environment and so covid brought a lot of job losses to many homes and so for some people what used to be their power no longer became their power and so other forms of power had to be demonstrated these are one of the areas in which gender-based violence saw the soaring figures as we as we can see and just as M
arishka was saying people were now forced to remain at home and so where probably I don't believe personally that new 50 new cases of gender-based violence evolved over covet I believe and I would like to propose that it was gender-based violence that existed already but of course now we are living in a confined situation and so it had to wear its ugly head in the worst forms ever and that is what we saw and then of course now with with the advocacy being more vocal persons are now reporting mor
e than they used to and so while there might be some new cases I don't disagree with that but I don't think majority of the cases that we saw were new cases were probably cases that were already there but were just exacerbated because of the covet and the lockdown situation the loss of employment the stresses of life that brought on many many you know forms of challenges to families this is what I believe happened and as as she as she rightly said avenues that persons were used to getting or cou
ld have sought you know counseling was no longer an essential service the essential service where the groceries you know the the doctors the health unless it was serious that it required injury then you could have sought that help all right sister Nana you said something there that I I do believe I want to just you know stick up in and excavate for a minute when did lockdown was in full effect you could get a pass to go do certain activities right outside of the cool few hours you could get a pa
ss if you had to go to work if you had to go to you know the hospital it was what they deemed an emergency but as you're rightfully seeing you know a therapist or um you know a support system was not as far as I can recall listed as an essential Service as something that you needed a pass for so perhaps even then we could have been looking at you know what exactly is an emergency right and I think um I think you're very right and Excavating that for a minute for us what exactly do we look at as
a community as being essential and important and what should we be focusing on one dollars and cents on right instead of simply just looking at you know the physical doctors and you know these hospitals and all that we need to be looking at the Mental effects right how people are dealing and coping mentally with a lot of things and making sure that we have enough support and um help out there so thank you very much for that um officer Mills I just want some minutes to ask you from your perspecti
ve um with the Tobago Division and we're not singling out to be cool I'm I live in Tobago so you know it's always an interest to me I just want to get some perspective from you um what is happening not just in Tobago but what is happening with Trinidad and Tobago in terms of our numbers in terms of What's um what happened did you see an escalation in terms of the reporting as the numbers you're seeing you know in your police station in your everyday life as a police officer yes of course uh with
the Advent of covid and so on unit we have two offices uh one located at the Siobhan Road police station and one is located at the Roxboro police station and at both offices we have seen an increase uh with the Advent of the covid-19 pandemic in reports you know involving gender-based violence but more than that and let's consider this when we would have you know interviewed the victims and so on during reports uh one thing you know there's always there's a recurring decimal and that persons ar
e saying officer I never knew my wife was like this officer I never knew my husband was like this you see we have to look at the fact that persons might be married for quite some time for years but never really spent a full day and night together in the same space you know so with Kobe no one with the whole lockdown situation we have seen persons actually becoming you know shocked you know flabbergasted confused that their wives you know their spouses their husbands have been displaying you know
attitudes that they have never you know experienced or been a part of that they are unable to comprehend that coupled with the whole is your frustration loss of jobs that was mentioned before and so on you know person's views became very short and you know temples started flaring and so on and the reports just started coming into our office persons were calling the police just for a simple argument come and put peace in the home you know come and talk to my husband come and talk to my wife we'r
e not we're not able to come to some common ground on a discussion that we're having you know and when the report is made we have to log it we have to put it in the statistics once we respond to a home or respond to our reported in the home it doesn't matter how simple or trivial or serious it is once we respond we have to log it in our registers because the law says so and so you might find you know reports are coming in and the numbers are going up with um domestic violence reports but sometim
es it's not really domestic violence people are just looking to the police looking for a third party just to put peace just to you know be able to say something in the presence of a third party because if there's nothing party it will deteriorate into an argument and it might even go further but we really have been seeing increase you know increases happening within the division uh especially within the Eastern side of Tobago and of late we are seeing it happening now in the western end of Tobag
o even though the numbers and you know the country we can see has more or less return to some sort of normalcy the reports are still coming in as a matter of fact basically every day we would have at least two three four reports in both areas both districts is an um Scarborough of domestic violence so yeah the reports are coming in and they are continuously coming in persons are seeking help personal seeking assistants children are being affected even children are making reports in Tobago so the
re is a need to really look into it you know in depth and see what can happen let's get our stakeholders involved and so on let's see what could happen in terms of trying to reverse this whole pandemic within a pandemic as I I would call it the whole pandemic of domestic violence and gender violence in Tobago and by extension Trinidad well we I think what we're taking away well I'm just certainly going to be taking this away the pandemic in the pandemic and we're looking at as officer Mills is t
alking about who's looking at the pandemic of gender-based violence of course we know you know it's not a disease that's not really catching but if you don't have a proper handle on your on your mental state on your perspective of ownership control what is mine you know who is mine this is my property unwanting text so if you don't have a handle and an understanding that that is not right human beings are not property those are some things that um Can escalate and certainly lead you down a path
to Once becoming a perpetrator of gender-based violence before we close right because we we're past our time but I just want us to look at two more topics or questions rather and one of those is the issue or topic of allies picture in domestic violence and eradicating it in stemming the flu as well as what your rule can be in stopping gender-based violence from happening around you you know to people close to you in the community how can you support and help and lead us to a place where you know
when we look at in 2020 in 2030 we can see gender-based violence is no longer um an issue so we want to look at allyship and just to be clear when we speak of Elisha we are looking at um pulling on the health and assistance in affirming that gender-based violence is not going to be tolerated and should not be existing in our communities from what we would look at as persons who are not um who are not affected by the gender visual islands and we're looking at men so when we talk about gender-bas
ed violence allyship we're looking at men standing up with women and talking about this issue of gender-based violence looking to eradicated do you want to look at allyship and we also want to discuss the solutions how you can be a part of this solution to end gender-based violence to open the floor before we close off to those two topics all right um I think in the case of men being allies to the situation of gender-based violence is that they can hold their friends or persons that they see you
know engaging in these apps all of them accountable have a conversation ask questions like why are you doing this you know what what is the actual reasoning behind it what what would you actually get from doing this to your partner or to this person you know have the the perpetuator answer some of questions because I believe that within answering questions you are able to actually understand the reasoning behind things for yourself because even if persons on the outside might see something you
within yourself thinking about the situation you might be able to save it for free why am I doing this or you might be able to say you know I think it's connected to something that happened to me before maybe I should work on this particular thing or that particular thing you know so if it is that men could choose to nothing not just men but even women you know put the aggressor in the situation right as long as they are able to hold themselves accountable Who Your Friends accountable for what t
hey do then I think that you know incidents can be reduced thanks and within my school as a conflict resolution which I think things like anger management seminars which are due to start probably sometime next year things like that to ask this persons in identifying their triggers and showing them different Avenues they can use to solve situations I think it basically educating individuals on what anger is which stems from what they can do instead of things like that would be able to stem the am
ount of abuse or the amount of violence situations that we encounter yeah I will I will agree that in terms of allyship we can all be allies to the situation but if we want men to be allies we have to Target it from the fact that they have mothers they have sisters they have aunties they have grandmothers they have cousins this could be one of them how would they feel if this happened to their system or their mother or their aunt or their grandmother if you target it from the personal you know n
ot something that is far off not something that happens to their buddy's girlfriend or their Buddy's sister but something that could happen close to whom and have and their daughters you know especially when you mention the daughters they can't even fathom that we are trying to create a society where it should not happen to any of these persons and so start having those conversations with your male friends talking to them about creating a society where your daughters can walk free where your sis
ters can be themselves and not be afraid when another guy be it anywhere tries to approach them in a way that they are not comfortable with and so here you let them see that it could come close to home and then speaking as Marisha said to them about being accountable holding their friends accountable to it that even when somebody starts to make some dirty jokes or some simple jokes that they think are appropriate consider them boy that's not cool that's not right you know it starts from there th
ose locker room talks it needs to start from there and how do we then also amplify our voices we need to have everyone be it at a community level be it in the work setting put up their leadership skills in this be a leader about it speak out about it the um the the legislation now gives opportunity for third party reporting you know many times you hear of persons dying and you ask yourself so nobody saw anything nobody heard anything by the time the police comes somebody is dead or somebody is s
eriously injured but there were neighbors around there were family members around but nobody said anything and so we we have to be the Standalone and sometimes it might mean that persons will not be happy with us but would you rather know that you could have said something and saved a life or rather kept quiet and was part of a life being lost that's what I have to say on that thank you that is correct you know I'm in full argument with my colleagues and that all is your allyship I want to hear
the term allyship uh well for me when I hear the team allyship I'm thinking support group you know it is very important that you know within all aspects of society and all areas of society we encourage men to form support groups it doesn't have to be anything official you know anything where you have to sign up and that kind of thing you know just the boys on the Block encourage the positive conversations encourage you know men respecting each other and by extension or expecting a woman and vice
versa and I believe when that starts to happen we would see we should as a matter of fact see that when I change anyway our men really to our women and vice versa we have to consider that the the conversations that we are having as a people actually um giveaway and I encourage us to act based on those conversations so miss mentioned the jokes and one of the things that we say as men the disrespectful comments when you see a woman pass by it it it it all ends here too and it it encourages us as
men to act upon what is said and what we hear so we need to really form those support groups and not only men you know even women we have to start discussing with a woman how do they want to be treated what do they want to hear coming from us men we it is important that we know coming from the woman women themselves all they want to treat it what they want to hear it might be difficult as men especially if we are not in the habit of saying these things to a woman that they want to hear but at le
ast if you start having a conversation that's a start you know and we could go from there be stronger from there in in going forward as a society that's just my take on the Holy Spirit allyship and so on and it will even assist us in putting our whole stop well let me not say stop because you have to be realistic but at least putting a form of control on the whole issue of gender-based violence and domestic violence and minimizing not only the instances of reports but minimizing the whole act in
itself which would lend to the reports coming in you know that's just how I see it basically from my end as a police officer um so much so many good points coming out of this discussion and before we close we just want to summarize we want to go back over some of the things that we've heard because we don't want you all to go away and forget we want you to remember we want to keep everything we're hearing in front of mind and we talked about what is gender-based violence and very simply we're l
ooking at issues of control we're looking at issues of inequal power in equal situations happening whether it be Financial whether it be physical whether it be in the home in terms of who has the authority to say and to we're looking at inequality in the gender Dynamic and we're looking at that issue of power control wanting to dominate and have ownership as officer Mills have brought up we also want to make sure that we understand it from types of domestic violence we were domestic violence you
know we there are other aspects we look at the financial aspects of it in the end of examples also pointing out the action or inaction of a person can now be deemed as um under the laws as domestic violence your inability to act and we want to also look at the fact that there is a law there is a law that covers um the domestic violence act and you can um get redress under the law and stand up for yourself and make sure that the perpetrator is brought to Justice and that their consequences to th
eir actions right and you know just lastly we want to look at Solutions we want to make sure we remember it's not a hopeless situation as Nana pointed out you know she talked about the solution this Survivor right she talked about going through it but coming out on the other end of it and that's where we want our society to head we want our society to head into a place of solution and the eventual reduction and elimination of gender-based violence and you too everyone here everyone viewing you c
an be part of the solution whether as Manchester said you know you have to pull the person's account comfortable you know who are the men and women in your community accountable why are you doing this what are you benefiting from doing something like that do you think that makes sense is that in the best interest of your family and in your best interest we talked about respecting autism has talked about respecting yourself respecting the woman in your lives respecting your community and this tal
ked about respecting not just um in the community sorry but talking about how are we keeping people accountable for what we're doing the locker room tours and she named it you know that that is cool then that is something that we can also look at right in terms of making sure that people have these very very informal conversations on a normal everyday basis what's happening in um your community and in your mind in your family and so on so we want to close this evening I want to thank the panel I
want to thank marushka Thomas sister Nana um officer Mills I also want to thank the actor Renee King and Ariana Muhammad the director of the film mangoes from the valley a short film looking at um the effects and the consequences issues around the topic of migration and domestic gender-based violence and we want to thank you for tuning in for taking time out of your schedule to tune in and understand the issues and give your points of view because we're over time we're not going to do the Q a r
ight now so what I want to encourage everyone to do is to use your Facebook page if you have one or if you are on the chat right now you can put your questions and we are going to send them into the panel and you will get um an opportunity to get a response but if you're on Facebook you can use the comment section and just put your questions and a comments there how you felt about the film that you saw how it touched you how it moved you what you think about the issues how are you being affected
by the issues and I just want to put out there that on our Facebook page civil TT and our Instagram page we have left um numbers for persons who may need support from gender-based violence support services in Trinidad and Tobago so you can go to our Instagram and Facebook page and see some of the numbers um there that may be able to you know pull on and give you the help and support that you need and of course we want to always remember that you're not in this alone we're in this together we're
a community we're a Regional Community heading into Global community and we're here to support each other and to make sure that we head into 2030 with no gender-based violence um I just want to thank everyone again if we have any clues and remarks um opening the floor we flee to the panelists and um I just want to leave here let you all get a chance to meet your closing remarks and then we close off for the night all right so right away and of it but I was just like the public and overviewing a
nd listening audience to know that the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service has adopted a zero tolerance policy on domestic violence and reports involving domestic violence and so once these reports come into our office we are going to conduct our inquiries and treat with each report based on its own merits and if needs be persons who have to go before the court we are going to take those persons before the court as to the full extent of the law they are going to have to answer domestic violence i
t needs to stop and we within the Police Service are going to be doing all part to assist or women and or men to achieving a greater level of Peace safety comfort and security within their homes and wherever they may exist and coexist within Society so thank you very much for having me thank you for allowing us to be a part of this program very timely very important for time such as now I'm really happy to be a part of this program thanks to everyone and the conflict resolution coach I I will al
ways say when situations arise there must be another so as much as people may be tempted to go on Instinct and to lash out think hurts and act after because you don't want to end up in a situation where you regret the things that you did yes I agree with the closing statements of my colleagues and just want to add that violence against women gender-based violence intimate partner violence is everybody's business we all have to see it as something that we need to work towards ending today is your
neighbor tomorrow it could be you and so turning a blind eye to the situation is not helping anybody it cost us all it costs taxpayers money it affects our GDP resources that could be used for other things are going to solve that problem so let us work together let us raise our voices against it and be leaders in whatever spaces that we occupy to make sure that violence against women gender-based violence intimate partner violence domestic violence comes to an end thank you thank you very much
and good night everyone good night good night have a blessed night
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