More men have reported being victims of discrimination, and according to the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) of the 55 sexual discrimination complaints received for this year, 21 are from men. The commission’s CEO Devanty Dianne Maraj-Ramdeen revealed that yesterday during a breakfast seminar on Human Rights and Gender at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain.
Celebrating National Human Rights Day yesterday, Maraj-Ramdeen said between 2008 and the present, 270 complaints had been received from women, compared to 536 from men. She said the disparity was indicative that men complained more than women but also that women were less willing to come forward and report acts of discrimination whether it was gender-based, domestic or sexual in nature.
Confirming these findings, EOC chairman attorney Lynette Seebaran-Suite said legislation was enacted more than 23 years ago to address domestic violence and between 1991 and 2014, 125,166 applications under domestic violation legislation had been filed at the magistrates courts. She said that represented a rate of just over 10,000 applications a year.
Pointing out that the files containing information about these incidents were a “vast body of knowledge just waiting to be analysed,” Seebaran-Suite said the findings could influence future policy formation and implementation. On incidents of rape, incest and sexual crimes, she said: “There is a very serious under-reporting of these types of offences. “It is safe to say we have a continuing problem of domestic and gender violence in T&T.”
Although there are laws and mechanisms set up to assist people in these situations — such as shelters, NGOs, hotlines and courts — Seebaran-Suite said changes were needed in the legislation. “The time is right for a tweaking and a review of our legislative mechanism to address domestic violence,” she said. Addressing the issue of how perpetrators and batterers are dealt with, Seebaran-Suite is advocating for their removal from the home or situation, rather than removing the victim, as is the current norm.
Pointing out that this move would be more in line with international practices, she acknowledged:
“This would require significant investment in the provision of reception services for batterers, because if we were to remove them, we do not want them wandering around in the backyard making a tack back and doing all the things we know they are likely to do if they are not policed.”
She said appropriate arrangements must be made for those people, such as shelters, additional social workers, a cell in a station and access to psychosocial programmes. She stressed: “Rather than leaving the person out there on their own to enforce what is a piece of paper, we need to tweak the legislation which now mandates the actions and interventions of the police.
“It is now time to throw up a network of support around persons who have already obtained a protection order and to have a broader class of persons enforcing that order.” That category of enforcers should be extended to include neighbours of the victim, medical officials, religious advisers, family members and employers, she added.
Seebaran-Suite warned that it had become necessary to create that legislative mechanism, “or else we will continue to see the phenomenon of women who have protection orders in hand and continue to be killed on a daily basis in T&T.”