Fay­ola K J Fras­er

Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Aware­ness Month, ob­served every Oc­to­ber, is a pe­ri­od ded­i­cat­ed to rais­ing aware­ness about the preva­lence and im­pact of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. This month-long cam­paign aims to ed­u­cate the pub­lic about the signs of abuse and the re­sources avail­able to vic­tims. 

In T&T, dur­ing the ten-year mar­gin be­tween 2005 and 2015, the Trinidad Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence re­port­ed that 300 women were mur­dered and there were up to 7,000 cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­port­ed to the au­thor­i­ties. 

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od of Jan­u­ary-March 2020, the scourge of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence showed no signs of abat­ing, as the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices re­port­ed 556 cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in 2020 and 826 for the same pe­ri­od in 2021. 

On­ly a few days in­to 2024, two women were shot dead at their home by an es­tranged male part­ner of one of the women fol­low­ing a bit­ter sep­a­ra­tion. The vi­o­lence against women con­tin­ued through­out this year.

Char­ac­terised of­ten by si­lence, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­quires an in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to sup­port vic­tims in com­ing for­ward. Dur­ing Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Aware­ness Month, ad­vo­ca­cy ef­forts al­so fo­cus on pro­mot­ing pol­i­cy changes and im­prov­ing ser­vices for vic­tims. This in­cludes push­ing for stronger le­gal pro­tec­tions, bet­ter fund­ing for shel­ters and sup­port pro­grammes, and in­creased train­ing for law en­force­ment and health­care providers.

Pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns of­ten high­light the im­por­tance of by­stander in­ter­ven­tion and en­cour­age in­di­vid­u­als to seek refuge wher­ev­er pos­si­ble when the signs of abuse arise. 

Make­da Charles, born in T&T and raised in Siparia through­out her ear­ly child­hood, moved from T&T to the Unit­ed States to be with her moth­er at ten years old fol­low­ing the pass­ing of her fa­ther. Up­on ar­riv­ing in the US, Charles was met with a step­fa­ther in the home who was “phys­i­cal­ly vi­o­lent to every­one in the fam­i­ly.”

De­tail­ing the in­stances of abuse, she de­scribes the way he over­turned the bunk bed that she and her broth­er slept on, would be phys­i­cal­ly vi­o­lent and ver­bal­ly abu­sive to her moth­er, even while she was preg­nant, and that he sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed Charles at 12 years old. Shroud­ed in si­lence for many years, Charles felt un­able to come for­ward to her fam­i­ly mem­bers about the as­sault and con­tin­ued to suf­fer her step­fa­ther’s abuse.

At 15, she would join a pro­gramme that would change her life. Sum­mer Search, an NGO in NYC with branch­es through­out the Unit­ed States, is a pro­gramme of­fer­ing high school stu­dents em­pow­er­ment and guid­ance, al­low­ing them to thrive through men­tor­ing and sum­mers of ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing. It was dur­ing her in­ter­view for in­duc­tion in­to Sum­mer Search that Charles fi­nal­ly found the words to speak up about her abuse.

“In front of a group of sev­en staff, I some­how felt safe to tell them about what hap­pened to me,” she re­calls. Even­tu­al­ly, af­ter some time in the pro­gramme, “we de­cid­ed to­geth­er to have a meet­ing with my fam­i­ly to tell them what was go­ing on. But my step­fa­ther nev­er came.”

At that point of telling the rest of her fam­i­ly about the abuse, she de­cid­ed to stand up to her step­fa­ther and tell him that the abuse had to stop. And with in­creased scruti­ny of the sit­u­a­tion, it did. “I want­ed a re­demp­tive so­lu­tion,” Charles said as she re­mem­bered the de­pres­sion that over­came her in the years to fol­low.

As a church­go­ing fam­i­ly, she hoped and prayed that one day he would con­fess and re­pent, but as she still lived at home, she feared push­ing the is­sue any fur­ther, con­cerned that his wrath would cause greater harm to her­self or her broth­er.

Up­on com­plet­ing her fi­nal year in high school, she felt “burnt out, just want­ed to sleep all the time, and for­ev­er bat­tling an over­whelm­ing sad­ness.” For Charles, this meant that she felt un­able to start uni­ver­si­ty im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter high school and in­stead sought help to “heal from the in­side.”

She re­called re­ly­ing strong­ly on her faith, lis­ten­ing to ser­mons and lec­tures, read­ing in­spi­ra­tional books, seek­ing sup­port from a so­cial work­er through free clin­i­cal ser­vices at a hos­pi­tal, and speak­ing to her col­leagues and men­tors from Sum­mer Search. Dur­ing this time, she al­so went on a wilder­ness ex­pe­di­tion in Min­neso­ta and counts those ground­ing mo­ments as an in­te­gral part of her heal­ing jour­ney. 

Charles is an ad­vo­cate for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and hopes to see few­er in­stances of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in T&T and greater re­course for vic­tims. From a so­cio-po­lit­i­cal an­gle, she said that po­lice need to pro­vide greater pro­tec­tion, in­clud­ing en­hanced per­son­al/home se­cu­ri­ty for peo­ple who make re­ports, to avoid re­tal­i­a­tion by the per­pe­tra­tor.

“It’s not enough to give a court or­der, but re­sources should be used to guard vic­tims. Vic­tims should al­so be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn self-de­fence skills, while per­pe­tra­tors should be coun­selled on anger man­age­ment.”

She en­cour­ages a shift in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that of­ten teach­es young women to be silent and sub­mis­sive to­wards new val­ues where women are not seen as pas­sive ob­jects to be con­trolled.

On a per­son­al lev­el, she speaks to vic­tims’ rel­a­tives, en­cour­ag­ing them to be­lieve vic­tims who come for­ward and house and shel­ter them. For vic­tims them­selves, she said they need to doc­u­ment every­thing. “Take pic­tures of marks on the skin, record calls, and be ready to show proof how this per­son has been abus­ing you or even threat­en­ing you.” 

Now 35 years old, she has nev­er for­got­ten her child­hood and young adult­hood, marred by abuse and as­sault, but she cred­its the help of God and a sig­nif­i­cant amount of ded­i­cat­ed self-work for her heal­ing. She has amassed an im­pres­sive ed­u­ca­tion, in­clud­ing her Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Psy­chol­o­gy, and a Mas­ter’s in So­cial Work.

“I’ve al­ways been cu­ri­ous about hu­man be­hav­iour,” she says, “and I want to al­so help peo­ple re­cov­er from trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences like I was able to re­cov­er.” Brave and strong, she has found her voice, found heal­ing, and been able to use her sto­ry to touch sur­vivors of abuse and “to be­come a per­son of love.”

Her key mes­sage to vic­tims is that “when you find the strength to re­port it and you get out—nev­er go back.”