On Tues­day, Tara “Gee­ta” Ram­sa­roop, 34, and her one-year-old daugh­ter, Ja­da Moti­lal, were hacked to death at a house on Lo­ca­tion Road, Bar­rack­pore. A 29-year-old man was ar­rest­ed at the scene and re­mained in po­lice cus­tody as of Thurs­day af­ter­noon. At the crime scene, Ram­sa­roop’s old­er sis­ter, Jas­so­dra Ra­jaram, ac­cused the po­lice of not act­ing ur­gent­ly enough, as sev­er­al pro­tec­tion or­ders and po­lice re­ports were made against the sus­pect.

Guardian Me­dia In­ves­ti­ga­tions Desk takes a look at whether pro­tec­tion or­ders are ef­fec­tive and whether they can pro­tect vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

There have been 28 mur­ders re­lat­ed to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in 2024. Of this fig­ure, 14 have been con­sid­ered solved (when a per­son is ar­rest­ed and charged) by po­lice.

How­ev­er, fig­ures pre­sent­ed at a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, host­ed by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel in Sep­tem­ber, re­port­ed that as of Au­gust 2024, there have been 1,227 cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

In 2019, 528 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es were re­port­ed. In 2020, there were 1,380 cas­es be­fore a slight dip to 1,336 cas­es re­port­ed in 2021. The fig­ure con­tin­ued to rise to 1,690 cas­es in 2022 be­fore ris­ing even high­er to 2,646 cas­es in 2023.

Da­ta com­piled by the po­lice Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch re­vealed that be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Sep­tem­ber 26, this year, 34 women were killed, com­pared to 41 for the same pe­ri­od last year. In many in­stances, the vic­tims had pro­tec­tion or­ders.

How­ev­er, the is­suance of a pro­tec­tion or­der by it­self will not be enough to stem in­ci­dents of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence or in­ter-part­ner vi­o­lence, as con­tin­ued ac­tion re­quires the sup­port of var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions, so­ci­eties, and even the gen­er­al pub­lic.

“If you ask any­one in the Ju­di­cia­ry, they would say be­sides the com­plaints that are com­ing through the lawyers, a lot of peo­ple are go­ing to the Jus­tice of the Peace, or a Com­mis­sion­er of Af­fi­davits, or email­ing the court di­rect­ly or call­ing the do­mes­tic vi­o­lence hot­line, so when you look at the mag­is­trate’s dock­et for the day, it’s full,” at­tor­ney Crys­tal Paul told Guardian Me­dia last week.

High Court Judge Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad said the is­sue of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence went be­yond the scope of the po­lice and the Ju­di­cia­ry.

“It is not a po­lice prob­lem or a court prob­lem; it is a so­ci­etal prob­lem and re­quires an all-hands-on-deck ap­proach. The fight must start with ed­u­ca­tion and gen­der sen­si­ti­sa­tion and a re­set­ting of misog­y­nis­tic at­ti­tudes that have be­come cul­tur­al­ly en­trenched. Sup­port sys­tems are al­so vi­tal, and vic­tims need to have places where they can go so as to re­move them­selves from the dan­ger. The pro­vi­sion of safe spaces is im­per­a­tive. In­sti­tu­tion­al sys­tems need to be strength­ened, and the sanc­tions im­posed up­on do­mes­tic vi­o­lence of­fend­ers must be sig­nif­i­cant,” he said in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last Wednes­day.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad added that the long-term suc­cess of any in­ter­ven­tion is “de­pen­dant up­on a col­lab­o­ra­tive and mul­ti­di­men­sion­al ap­proach. This is a WE prob­lem.”

Us­ing an ex­am­ple of hous­ing and ac­com­mo­da­tion for sur­vivors af­ter a pro­tec­tion or­der was grant­ed, Seep­er­sad not­ed that re­mov­ing a vic­tim from the home of the abuser would re­duce the like­li­hood of fur­ther at­tacks.

“There are many vic­tims whose woes are com­pound­ed be­cause they are un­able to va­cate the homes they share with their abusers … They have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. If, as a so­ci­ety, we are se­ri­ous about their pro­tec­tion, then the State and civ­il so­ci­ety must part­ner to­geth­er to pro­vide ac­com­mo­da­tion where vic­tims can be shield­ed from their abusers.”

The pro­vi­sion of safe spaces im­per­a­tive

At­tor­ney Crys­tal Paul agreed that there are lim­it­ed op­tions avail­able for the vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence who may need ac­com­mo­da­tion af­ter es­cap­ing abuse. Paul, who has prac­tised fam­i­ly law for six years and has as­sist­ed clients in re­ceiv­ing pro­tec­tion or­ders, said de­pend­ing on the cir­cum­stances of their liv­ing sit­u­a­tions, some vic­tims may con­tin­ue to live with their abusers be­cause they have nowhere else to go.

“Some­times they (homes) don’t have the re­sources to take any­more per­sons; some­times they tell you the shel­ter is full and they can­not give you a bed for that night, so some­times peo­ple have no choice but to stay in abu­sive re­la­tion­ships be­cause they have nowhere to go.

“There are non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions; there are church groups that try to as­sist, but re­mem­ber, these are things that re­quire a bud­get, so there may be short-term help but noth­ing re­al­ly you can bank on.”

 Shireen Pol­lard, a di­rec­tor for the Trinidad Shel­ter for Sur­vivors of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, said the fa­cil­i­ty can ac­com­mo­date 21 peo­ple but is al­most al­ways filled.

“We prob­a­bly av­er­age any­where be­tween 17 and the full 21 res­i­dents on a giv­en day. The num­ber of per­sons seek­ing the help of the shel­ter has in­creased. We have re­cent­ly com­plet­ed a wing to the shel­ter; we’re in the process of build­ing it, so that should dou­ble our oc­cu­pan­cy.”

Pol­lard, who has worked at the shel­ter since 2021, said res­i­dents were al­lowed to stay at the fa­cil­i­ty be­tween three and nine months. How­ev­er, oth­er sit­u­a­tions re­quired that vic­tims re­main in their care for longer.

“We re­cent­ly had a client who stayed with us for two years, be­cause there were a lot of un­der­ly­ing cir­cum­stances with her. “We have a res­i­dent with us now who has a pro­tec­tion or­der, but be­cause the threat is so high, she can’t leave our shel­ter right now even though she has the pro­tec­tion or­der, be­cause the po­lice have warned us that the per­pe­tra­tor is still around in the neigh­bour­hood look­ing for her.”

De­spite chal­lenges and sev­er­al re­cent mur­ders, Pol­lard said she felt leg­is­la­tion and poli­cies were suf­fi­cient but need­ed reg­u­lar mon­i­tor­ing to as­sess whether they were ef­fec­tive.

“Who’s do­ing the mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­at­ing to en­sure leg­is­la­tion or de­part­ments be­ing formed that the ser­vices are be­ing pro­vid­ed? The con­ver­sa­tion needs to move to­wards rais­ing aware­ness and mon­i­tor­ing the mea­sures to en­sure that it’s work­ing, and if it’s not work­ing, how do we amend it?”

BOX

Po­lice can charge abusers with­out vic­tims’ co­op­er­a­tion

Mean­while, one po­lice of­fi­cer com­plained that he has ex­pe­ri­enced sev­er­al in­stances where the vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence have called on the po­lice for help but lat­er had a change of heart.

Re­fer­ring to one in­ci­dent in the South­ern Di­vi­sion last year where a woman con­tact­ed the po­lice claim­ing to be at­tacked by her com­mon-law hus­band, the woman then plead­ed with po­lice to re­lease the at­tack­er once he was ar­rest­ed.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said while some vic­tims may show hes­i­tance to pur­sue mat­ters with the po­lice, of­fi­cers were with­in their right to press charges against abusers if there ex­ists suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to es­tab­lish that a crime has been com­mit­ted. 

“In do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sce­nar­ios, the na­ture of a re­la­tion­ship makes it dif­fi­cult for the vic­tims to di­vorce their emo­tion from the re­al­i­ty of the dan­ger that faces them. Re­sponse of­fi­cers must re­ceive the req­ui­site train­ing to em­pow­er them to treat with such a cir­cum­stance and to bold­ly ac­ti­vate the law when­ev­er a crim­i­nal of­fence has been com­mit­ted. At that stage, the wish­es of the vic­tim can­not trump the greater so­ci­etal in­ter­est that ex­ists in en­forc­ing the law. At times dif­fi­cult steps must be en­gaged so as to pro­tect those who may be un­able or un­will­ing to pro­tect them­selves.”

At­tor­ney Paul said in her ex­pe­ri­ence it was com­mon for clients who suf­fered abuse to want to rekin­dle re­la­tion­ships with their abusers, es­pe­cial­ly in cas­es where chil­dren were in­volved.

She said while it was com­mend­able for the ac­cused to im­prove their lifestyle and at­ti­tudes with pro­fes­sion­al psy­choso­cial in­ter­ven­tion, the vic­tims were of­ten ad­vised to main­tain some dis­tance from their for­mer abusers for their own safe­ty.

“I tell ap­pli­cants for pro­tec­tion or­ders, I don’t mind if you’re try­ing to work on your fam­i­ly, but be­fore you breach this or­der (and make con­tact with the per­son), are you sat­is­fied that this per­son has re­al­ly changed? There have been sit­u­a­tions where ap­pli­cants have re­ceived mul­ti­ple calls, death threats, a lot of voice notes, and be­ing fol­lowed and stalked by a per­son, so I al­ways warn ap­pli­cants that this is not some­thing that they should take light­ly. A lot of women and some men, un­for­tu­nate­ly, are so for­giv­ing, they for­get the past.”

Paul warned that while pro­tec­tion or­ders were in­tend­ed to pro­tect the vic­tims, theyt were some­times “weaponised” by vic­tims against their al­leged abusers once they made amends. She said these sit­u­a­tions could af­fect the re­sponse of the po­lice, as some of­fi­cers may not treat these mat­ters with the nec­es­sary ur­gency if there was a record of the vic­tim us­ing court or­ders to ‘spite’ oth­ers.

“A pro­tec­tion or­der is sup­posed to be a shield, not a sword, and what we’ve re­alised is that a lot of the ap­pli­cants use it when it’s con­ve­nient for them. Some­times they may make up with a per­son and all is well, but when they have an ar­gu­ment, the vic­tim may say, ‘You’re not sup­posed to be with­in 50 feet of me, or you’re not sup­posed to be call­ing my phone,’ then they run to the po­lice and say this per­son is in breach of the or­der.

“I think po­lice of­fi­cers have be­come de­sen­si­tised, and they re­al­ly have to main­tain that mo­men­tum where they treat all mat­ters se­ri­ous­ly re­gard­less of whether they think this is ur­gent or not.”

Paul added that sit­u­a­tions where peo­ple did not take such pro­tec­tion or­ders se­ri­ous­ly by con­tin­u­ing to main­tain con­tact with al­leged abusers could al­so im­pact the pri­or­i­ty with which oth­er vic­tims are giv­en.

*BOX*

How to get a pro­tec­tion or­der

A pro­tec­tion or­der is a court-is­sued or­der grant­ed to some­one up­on ap­pli­ca­tion to the court. The or­der is in­tend­ed to re­strict or pro­hib­it some­one (re­ferred to by the court as the re­spon­dent) from in­ter­act­ing with the vic­tim (re­ferred to as an ap­pli­cant by the court).

Pro­tec­tion or­ders can­not on­ly be is­sued in re­sponse to phys­i­cal vi­o­lence and as­sault but al­so cas­es of ha­rass­ment, threats, sex­u­al, emo­tion­al, psy­cho­log­i­cal, or fi­nan­cial abuse. Once some­one is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing these forms of abuse, they can make an ap­pli­ca­tion to the Fam­i­ly Court or their dis­trict mag­is­trate’s court, where they can present their ev­i­dence, af­ter which a pro­tec­tion or­der is grant­ed. Pro­tec­tion or­ders can be ap­plied for through an at­tor­ney or can be sought di­rect­ly from vic­tims by writ­ing or e-mail­ing the court and de­scrib­ing the cir­cum­stances or what prob­lems have been hap­pen­ing, where the ap­pli­cant feels they are in dan­ger. Once a com­plaint is gen­er­at­ed, the al­leged abuser is served with it.