Speak­ing at a gen­der sem­i­nar on Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Clifton De Coteau cit­ed trou­bling sta­tis­tics re­lat­ed to gen­der based vi­o­lence in T&T.His lead fig­ure was the preva­lence of homi­cides re­sult­ing from in­ci­dents of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, which run sec­ond on­ly to gang killings in the na­tion­al tal­ly of mur­der.In 2010, ac­cord­ing to the Gen­der Min­is­ter, there were 940 re­ports of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence 68.2 per cent of which were iden­ti­fied as as­sault by beat­ing.

The in­ci­dence of rape, in­cest, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and sex with mi­nor fe­males to­talled 673, the ma­jor­i­ty be­ing re­ports of rape and sex with un­der­age girls.Gen­der-based vi­o­lence, Mr De Coteau warned, "cuts across all cul­tures, races, re­li­gions and so­cio-eco­nom­ic lev­els with the ma­jor­i­ty of cas­es in­volv­ing women and girls but which al­so af­fects men and boys."The Gen­der Min­is­ter fur­ther not­ed that the da­ta he was ref­er­enc­ing didn't de­scribe the full ex­tent of gen­der based vi­o­lence and the preva­lence of threats of such vi­o­lence.

The in­for­ma­tion he shared pro­vides a clear sig­nal that the is­sues sur­round­ing do­mes­tic and gen­der-based vi­o­lence are both se­ri­ous and per­va­sive enough to mer­it a na­tion­al ef­fort at mo­bil­is­ing so­lu­tions and build­ing in­creased aware­ness.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers