Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia’s In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk high­light­ed the in­creas­ing trends of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es and sex­u­al vi­o­lence cas­es against chil­dren. 

While some per­pe­tra­tors have been ar­rest­ed there is a low pros­e­cu­tion rate even as more women seek pro­tec­tion or­ders from the court.

For the fam­i­lies left be­hind, it takes years to get jus­tice and life can nev­er be nor­mal again. 

Long wait for jus­tice

On Ju­ly 21, 2011, Selvon Reyes’ two young sons and es­tranged wife Vonet­ta Haynes-Reyes were bru­tal­ly mur­dered at their Plumba­go Av­enue, La Hor­quet­ta home.

The killings sparked out­rage on so­cial me­dia, rocked the peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty and brought Reyes to his knees.

Thir­teen years af­ter the mur­ders, Reyes, 49, con­tin­ues to ask what his sons—eight-year-old Ma­lik and Makasi, five, had done to de­serve such hor­ri­ble deaths.

“That is the hurt­ful part about it. Why the kids?”

Still try­ing to come to terms with the loss more than a decade lat­er, Reyes said he has asked God to for­give the killer.

The necks of Ma­lik and Makasi were slit while their 31-year-old moth­er died as a re­sult of a stab wound to the neck.

Haynes-Reyes’ car, which was re­port­ed miss­ing on the day of the mur­ders, was lo­cat­ed in Cara­po a few days lat­er.

Based on the pat­tern of blood on the bed­room floor, Reyes was told by in­ves­ti­ga­tors that Ma­lik fought with the killer be­fore los­ing his life.

“I can’t imag­ine what he went through,” Reyes said, as he tried hard to hold back his tears.

He said Makasi was asleep when his throat was slashed.

Days af­ter the killings, the po­lice ar­rest­ed and charged 23-year-old An­cil Richards, the moth­er’s neigh­bour, with the mur­ders.

Ma­lik and Makasi were Reyes’ pride and joy.

He shared an un­break­able bond with his sons.

“They were my every­thing. I still can’t be­lieve they are gone.”

To this day, Reyes still grieves.

Reyes was at his San Juan work­place when a friend called him to say that his sons and their moth­er were mur­dered.

“I took it for a joke,” Reyes re­called.

Min­utes lat­er, Reyes said a fam­i­ly mem­ber in­formed him of the bad news.

“Then it hit me...I start­ed to bawl for my kids. My whole in­side start­ed to feel hol­low. I kept say­ing that could nev­er hap­pen to me.”

Al­though Reyes had been sep­a­rat­ed from Haynes-Reyes for years, his sons vis­it­ed his Orop­une home reg­u­lar­ly.

The day be­fore the mur­ders, Reyes re­mem­bered his boys beg­ging to spend the night with him.

Reyes be­lieved if he had al­lowed his sons to stay at his home af­ter pick­ing them up at the babysit­ter, they might have been alive to­day.

“It’s like I blame my­self still for this ... for not lis­ten­ing to them,” he said.

The mur­ders, Reyes said, be­gan to af­fect his men­tal health.

At one point, he had to seek help from two psy­chi­a­trists.

He lived on med­ica­tion.

“I start­ed to hear things. I start­ed to sit down on the cor­ner (of the road) and talk to my­self. I kept hear­ing my sons talk­ing to me.”

Reyes still suf­fers from de­pres­sion.

For Reyes, the wheels of jus­tice have been mov­ing too slow­ly.

“I am just pray­ing for jus­tice be­cause those in au­thor­i­ty don’t know the pain yuh does go through when you lose some­one you love. Un­less some­thing like that doh fall in their gar­den, they would not un­der­stand. I am still suf­fer­ing to this day.”

Ram­sa­roop’s pain 

What Tara Ram­sa­roop con­sid­ered to be a good day was sim­ply one where she was not beat­en or abused.  

Ram­sa­roop was so grate­ful for these days that she of­ten shared them with her old­er sis­ter Jas­so­dra Ra­jaram, with whom she shared a close bond and con­fid­ed in the prob­lems she faced with a close male rel­a­tive.

Ram­sa­roop, 34, known to rel­a­tives as Gee­ta and her one-year-old daugh­ter Ja­da Moti­lal had been found chopped to death at a rel­a­tive’s Lo­ca­tion Road, Bar­rack­pore, home on Oc­to­ber 9. 

Ram­sa­roop’s tur­bu­lent re­la­tion­ship with Rishi Moti­lal, 29, who was even­tu­al­ly ar­rest­ed and charged with their mur­ders, was al­leged­ly marked with nu­mer­ous com­plaints to rel­a­tives and po­lice re­ports be­fore their mur­ders. 

The vi­o­lent deaths of both moth­er and daugh­ter prompt­ed na­tion­wide out­rage over the grue­some na­ture of the crime and what could have been done to pre­vent it in the first place. 

But with her sis­ter and niece now dead and the man ac­cused of their mur­ders await­ing tri­al, Ra­jaram and the sur­viv­ing fam­i­ly con­tin­ue to live out their lives one day at a time, hop­ing for heal­ing they doubt will ever come. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at her home, which is with­in walk­ing dis­tance from the scene of her sis­ter and niece’s mur­der, Ra­jaram said time has not dulled the pain of her loss. 

Re­call­ing her last in­ter­ac­tion with Ram­sa­roop, the night be­fore her mur­der, Ra­jaram said they shared a ca­su­al con­ver­sa­tion with her sis­ter be­ing in un­usu­al­ly high spir­its. 

“We were just jok­ing around and mak­ing plans for a trip to Fun­Splash Wa­ter­park. 

“I was un­sure if I would be go­ing, but she was in such a good mood, she kept in­sist­ing.  

“She said some­thing to me that I nev­er for­got, ‘You have to live life be­cause you don’t know when is your time’.”

Ac­cord­ing to Ra­jaram, her sis­ter’s care­free frame of mind in their last con­ver­sa­tion was in stark con­trast to the fear and un­ease of­ten char­ac­ter­is­tic of her be­hav­iour.  

To­day, al­most two months af­ter the mur­ders of her sis­ter and niece, their last con­ver­sa­tion re­mains as clear as ever, but so does the grief she feels.  

Ra­jaram said while she con­tin­ues to func­tion in her dai­ly life as a small busi­ness own­er, wife and moth­er of two daugh­ters, heal­ing is still a dis­tant thought and fears that she may nev­er re­cov­er ful­ly from the loss.  

As the old­er sis­ter, Ra­jaram said she and her 14-year-old daugh­ter of­ten act­ed as babysit­ters for lit­tle Ja­da while her moth­er worked or ran er­rands.  

Dur­ing this time, their bond grew stronger, as the loss has been par­tic­u­lar­ly dev­as­tat­ing for both Ra­jaram and her daugh­ter. 

“Ja­da used to be here maybe four or five days for the week with us.  

“She was just about to start talk­ing and to this day I still feel like I see her walk­ing around the house.  

“My old­er daugh­ter bun­dles up every­thing but I know that she re­al­ly feels for the loss of Ja­da, one day she just let it all out and said that she can’t do with­out her.” 

The first few weeks fol­low­ing the mur­ders of moth­er and daugh­ter con­tin­ued to take a toll on the fam­i­ly.  

Tears were shed and emo­tions ran high as grief turned to anger to­wards the sus­pect.  

But even be­fore the mur­ders, Ra­jaram said her nephew - Ram­sa­roop’s sev­en-year-old son -be­gan show­ing signs of trau­ma from see­ing his moth­er abused.  

“He would wake up ei­ther 1 am or 2 am and run to the front door to turn the latch on the door, re­peat­ing, ‘Dad­dy com­ing, we have to run!’ and this was a night­mare he had. 

“The abuse around him was trau­ma­tis­ing him and she would have to hug him and wake him up. 

“She tried to not let them see what she’s go­ing through, but it was too much to hide.” 

The boy who now lives with the moth­er of the ac­cused is re­ceiv­ing psy­cho-so­cial sup­port. 

And while this as­sis­tance is need­ed to treat any long-term trau­ma, Ra­jaram said fam­i­lies should ral­ly to­geth­er to teach chil­dren, es­pe­cial­ly boys the im­por­tance of re­spect­ing girls and women. 

In­crease in de­mand for pro­tec­tion  

Da­ta ob­tained from the Ju­di­cia­ry ear­li­er this year re­port­ed that the to­tal num­ber of pro­tec­tion or­ders from Fam­i­ly, Chil­dren and Dis­trict Courts had in­creased from 2,111 in 2022 to 2,785 in 2023.  

The da­ta al­so showed that be­tween Jan­u­ary to Au­gust this year, 2,270 pro­tec­tion or­ders were al­ready grant­ed. 

An in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der was is­sued for Ram­sa­roop on April 24. 

How­ev­er, High Court Judge Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia in Oc­to­ber, not­ed that suf­fi­cient re­sources must be al­lo­cat­ed to shel­ters and homes for vic­tims of abuse. He said hav­ing a pro­tec­tion or­der may not be enough to pre­vent fur­ther at­tacks.  

In her ex­pe­ri­ence, Ra­jaram said first re­spon­ders must be held to high­er stan­dards of ac­count­abil­i­ty as she re­called in­stances where re­ports were made with lit­tle more than a re­ceipt to show for it.  

Af­ter one par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od of re­port­ing the abuse to the po­lice with lit­tle re­sults, Ra­jaram claimed her sis­ter was frus­trat­ed over the lack of re­sponse.  

“She said, ‘An­nie I just fed up. I don’t know what to do again for these po­lice to lock him up.’ 

“I said ‘Gee­ta the day some­thing hap­pens to you, that’s when you’ll see all the po­lice,’ and so said, so done.” 

How­ev­er, ACP South-Cen­tral Wayne Mys­tar re­ferred to the pro­tec­tion or­der grant­ed for Ram­sa­roop’s safe­ty and re­mind­ed vic­tims to avoid in­ter­act­ing with their abusers for their own safe­ty. 

“We can­not have per­sons who have pro­tec­tion or­ders to pro­tect them, (and) they are op­er­at­ing in a man­ner that will leave them­selves in harm’s way,” Mys­tar told one dai­ly news­pa­per. 

And while Ra­jaram agreed that her sis­ter should have kept away from the ac­cused for her own safe­ty, at this point there is noth­ing more that can be done. 

IACHR calls for im­me­di­ate ac­tion 

Alarmed by the da­ta, the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights, an au­tonomous or­gan of the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States, has ex­pressed its con­cern over the sit­u­a­tion of gen­der-based vi­o­lence against women in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The IACHR called on the State to adopt ur­gent mea­sures to pre­vent and erad­i­cate gen­der-based vi­o­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fam­i­ly and in­ti­mate part­ner con­text.

“These mea­sures should in­cor­po­rate a gen­der and in­ter­sec­tion­al ap­proach, en­sure the ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion of sur­vivors and pro­mote the trans­for­ma­tion of so­cio-cul­tur­al pat­terns that nor­malise gen­der-based vi­o­lence against women.

“The Com­mis­sion re­ceived re­ports of homi­cides of at least four women in Oc­to­ber 2024, who ex­pe­ri­enced a his­to­ry of do­mes­tic and in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence. Ac­cord­ing to pub­licly avail­able in­for­ma­tion, in re­cent weeks phys­i­cal at­tacks on six women were re­port­ed, of which four died. These at­tacks were per­pe­trat­ed by part­ners or ex-part­ners of the vic­tims. In some cas­es, the vic­tims would have been ben­e­fi­cia­ries of pro­tec­tion mea­sures that were not im­ple­ment­ed,” a press re­lease is­sued in ear­ly No­vem­ber said.

It called on the State to guar­an­tee that all women have ac­cess to ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion mea­sures and ju­di­cial guar­an­tees to pre­vent vi­o­lence from es­ca­lat­ing to femi­cide. It al­so called on com­pli­ance with oblig­a­tions to in­ves­ti­gate and pun­ish vi­o­lence, send­ing a clear mes­sage of ze­ro tol­er­ance.

“The Com­mis­sion recog­nis­es the State’s ef­forts to com­bat vi­o­lence against women, such as the Na­tion­al Strate­gic Plan of Ac­tion on Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence and Sex­u­al Vi­o­lence and the de­ci­sion of the High Court that recog­nised the State’s oblig­a­tion to pro­tect vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence from the ac­tions of non-State ac­tors. In this re­gard, it urges the State to con­tin­ue and re­dou­ble ef­forts to com­pre­hen­sive­ly ad­dress gen­der-based vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing mea­sures to trans­form dis­crim­i­na­to­ry so­cio-cul­tur­al pat­terns that nor­malise vi­o­lence against women, es­pe­cial­ly in the do­mes­tic and in­ti­mate part­ner con­texts.

“In par­tic­u­lar, the IACHR urges the State of Trinidad and To­ba­go to take con­crete mea­sures to en­sure that any vic­tim or po­ten­tial vic­tim of gen­der-based vi­o­lence has ac­cess to time­ly and ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion mea­sures, which in­te­grate dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed ap­proach­es to gen­der and in­ter­sec­tion­al­i­ty; it must al­so en­sure its prop­er im­ple­men­ta­tion through mon­i­tor­ing, su­per­vi­sion, and ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms. In ad­di­tion, it urges the State to con­duct dili­gent in­ves­ti­ga­tions that lead to the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and pun­ish­ment of those re­spon­si­ble, in ad­di­tion to en­sur­ing vic­tims’ ac­cess to com­pre­hen­sive care ser­vices and repa­ra­tion,” the No­vem­ber 7 re­lease said.

CADV con­tin­ues to ad­vo­cate for sup­port for bat­tered women

 In­ter­im pres­i­dent of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV) Dr Kati­ja Khan de­scribed the TTPS’ do­mes­tic vi­o­lence fig­ures as alarm­ing.

“I think any fig­ure that shows us the scope and the size of the prob­lem we have in our coun­try is alarm­ing and should con­tin­ue to alarm us,” she told Guardian Me­dia last week. 

The most dis­turb­ing crimes, she said, were sex­u­al of­fences com­mit­ted against chil­dren.

She said in many cas­es, the vic­tims know the per­pe­tra­tors, stat­ing that there is an epi­dem­ic of vi­o­lence against women and girls in T&T.

“These peo­ple should be play­ing a role in pro­tect­ing them. But in­stead they are caus­ing harm and trau­ma that they have to live with for years.”

Khan de­scribed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence as a scourge that wreaks hav­oc on house­holds, com­mu­ni­ties and so­ci­eties.

In the CADV’s 2021/2022 re­port, it said 34 peo­ple were killed in 2021 as a re­sult of fam­i­ly vi­o­lence.

Of that num­ber, 14 were as a re­sult of in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence.

The re­port stat­ed that from Jan­u­ary 2021 to June 2022 CADV pro­vid­ed over 512 free coun­selling and 32 le­gal con­sul­ta­tions for 147 new clients.

Each year, CADV gets fund­ing from spon­sors to help hun­dreds of women.

Khan said most of the women who sought coun­selling, le­gal ad­vice and treat­ment at CADV are in their 30s, em­ployed and ed­u­cat­ed.

“At least 85 per cent of them have one child.”

She said these acts of vi­o­lence against women and  chil­dren have to do with “pow­er and con­trol.”

In­tim­i­da­tion, iso­la­tion, eco­nom­ic abuse and ex­ploita­tion are al­so fac­tors.

“It al­so has to do with min­imis­ing blame and not tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty or gaslight­ing women. It’s not about love and loss.”

As an aca­d­e­m­ic and psy­chol­o­gist, Khan said pro­tec­tion or­ders have be­come a con­tentious and sig­nif­i­cant is­sue.

“While it is good that we have those pro­vi­sions... they don’t have the in­tend­ed ef­fect when the in­fra­struc­ture is not there to sup­port en­force­ment.”

On De­cem­ber 9, CADV will part­ner with the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion for Fem­i­nist Re­search and Ac­tion to dis­cuss this mat­ter in de­tail.