Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att says women must now stand up for each oth­er as the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act was not work­ing.She said so yes­ter­day as she ad­dressed stu­dents of AS­JA Girls' Col­lege, Saraswati Girls Hin­du Col­lege and Holy Faith Con­vent dur­ing a Par­lia­ment out­reach pro­gramme with Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Wade Mark at the Rudranath Capildeo Learn­ing Re­source Cen­tre, Cou­va.

Ma­habir-Wy­att, head of the T&T Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence and the Rape Cri­sis Cen­tre, said that even though there was leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect them, women were still abused and "that is not go­ing to stop."In fact, she said, vi­o­lence against women was in­creas­ing and the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act was not work­ing be­cause abusers were find­ing ways around the pro­vi­sions of the act and pro­tec­tion or­ders.

"You can­not put a po­lice of­fi­cer in every­body's house be­cause do­mes­tic vi­o­lence by and large takes place in the house," she said.Ma­habir-Wy­att, who was re­spond­ing to ques­tion from a stu­dent, said cit­i­zens need­ed to recog­nise that the en­vi­ron­ment was chang­ing and it was be­com­ing "more and more vi­o­lent so­ci­etal­ly, so­ci­o­log­i­cal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly."She said women need­ed to be more vo­cal and stand up for their rights.

"One of the things that we have to do as women, and I say this to every sin­gle one of you here, is not to sit back and wait for gov­ern­ment to pass laws to pro­tect you. We have to or­gan­ise our­selves and each oth­er and we have to help each oth­er," she added.Ma­habir-Wy­att told the stu­dents to help fel­low women when they asked for help be­cause some­day they may find them­selves in a po­si­tion where they al­so would need help.

She said women could help and sup­port each oth­er, start or­gan­i­sa­tions in their com­mu­ni­ties and help in the bat­tle to end do­mes­tic vi­o­lence."We have to be strong enough and brave enough and hon­est enough to or­gan­ise and help each oth­er in or­der to pro­tect our chil­dren, to pro­tect our fam­i­ly," she said.She said men al­so were sub­ject­ed to abuse, since "women are not an­gels," and could be "just as vi­cious with their tongues as men can be with their fists."

Ra­mona Ram­di­al, Cou­va South MP and ju­nior Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources, sug­gest­ed there was a lack of re­port­ing of abuse."I urge young women, do not be afraid to speak out, to help a friend or fam­i­ly mem­ber," she said.The min­is­ter made a faux pas when she called on the stu­dents al­so to re­port abuse to the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty hot­line.Ma­habir-Wy­att re­mind­ed her the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty was still not ready for op­er­a­tion as it was in the process of re­cruit­ing staff.

Mark said ed­u­ca­tion played a crit­i­cal role in gen­der equal­i­ty.He sug­gest­ed that male and fe­male cit­i­zens from the kinder­garten lev­el to ter­tiary lev­el must be ed­u­cat­ed and have an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for women's rights.