Yvonne Webb

Pres­i­dent of the Sin­gle Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion Ron­dell Fields is once again ap­peal­ing for more pro­fes­sion­al help for fa­thers who are un­der stress and pres­sure, say­ing this may be crit­i­cal in pre­vent­ing an­oth­er tragedy in­volv­ing chil­dren again. He al­so called for a re­turn of spir­i­tu­al val­ues.Re­fer­ring to the slay­ing over the week­end of in­fant sib­lings Keyan­na and Omari May­ers at the hands of their fa­ther Bar­ry Kara­math, who then took his own life, Fields said many men are liv­ing un­der try­ing cir­cum­stances.

How­ev­er, he said tak­ing the life of your own chil­dren should nev­er be the fi­nal out­come."I want to say to fa­thers, that could nev­er be the last straw. Tak­ing your chil­dren's life, tak­ing your life, that could nev­er be the last straw," he said.He told fa­thers if they can­not work with the moth­ers of their chil­dren, "let the women go," but to con­tin­ue to make their pres­ence felt in their chil­dren's life.

"It makes no sense what­so­ev­er to de­prive your chil­dren of your­self. It makes no sense to say I will take my life and let her keep the chil­dren. If you do this, you will be do­ing them a great in­jus­tice or worse, tak­ing their lives," Fields said.Kara­math and the moth­er of the two chil­dren Okil­la My­ers were sep­a­rat­ed.My­ers sub­se­quent­ly told the me­dia that Kara­math was pos­ses­sive and abu­sive to­wards her, but had nev­er shown any form of vi­o­lence to­wards the chil­dren.

Fields is a mem­ber of the Child Pro­tec­tion Task Force, which was set up by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and has been man­dat­ed to find the cause of and in­creased risks of crimes against chil­dren.Fields said he has ap­pealed to the PM for prop­er coun­selling and sup­port for fa­thers trou­bled by do­mes­tic sit­u­a­tions, but noth­ing has been done to date.

He said there are a few out­reach of­fi­cers who vol­un­teer their ser­vices to the group, but there is need to ex­pand the ser­vice and put pre­ven­ta­tive rather than puni­tive mea­sures in place for peo­ple who are hurt­ing.

Al­so com­ment­ing on the tragedy, which rocked the To­co com­mu­ni­ty on Palm Sun­day, was Min­is­ter of Gen­der Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Clifton De Coteau, who said the na­tion­al fam­i­ly sup­port ser­vices will pro­vide coun­selling for the be­reaved fam­i­lies. He said they are al­so li­ais­ing with the Min­istry of the Peo­ple to see what oth­er as­sis­tance they can pro­vide to the fam­i­lies.

"It is a sad day for Trinidad and To­ba­go when such vi­o­lence could be record­ed," De Coteau said, point­ing out that they have to come up with some oth­er al­ter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion for do­mes­tic sit­u­a­tions like what oc­curred at To­co.He said the min­istry is cur­rent­ly work­ing on treat­ing with do­mes­tic vi­o­lence against women, chil­dren and oth­er in­di­vid­u­als.He said on­ly re­cent­ly they got past the do­mes­tic reg­istry, which mon­i­tors such acts of vi­o­lence against these in­di­vid­u­als.

But clear­ly, he said, this lat­est in­ci­dent demon­strates the need for oth­er min­istries to con­tin­ue work­ing with Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment on its mit­i­ga­tion cen­tres, par­ent­ing car­a­van ini­tia­tive and cours­es for defin­ing male mas­culin­i­ty to find al­ter­na­tive ways to solve dis­putes.