An­na-Lisa Paul

Even though the Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence Unit (GB­VU) of the Po­lice Ser­vice has record­ed an in­crease in in­ci­dents dur­ing the past month, act­ing Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne says it may not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean more vi­o­lent episodes are oc­cur­ring– but that vic­tims and sur­vivors may now be more com­fort­able re­port­ing events that have been tak­ing place all along.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Guy-Al­leyne, who al­so heads the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit, said, “We have in­creased re­ports rel­a­tive to the Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence Unit when we com­pare the sta­tis­tics to last year’s for the same pe­ri­od this year.”

How­ev­er, she added: “This may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be a bad thing.”

Pressed to say how and why, Guy-Al­leyne ex­plained, “Last year, the unit was launched by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice in Jan­u­ary and short­ly af­ter that, we had the pan­dem­ic.”

In­di­cat­ing they had worked hard to cre­ate an en­cour­ag­ing at­mos­phere in terms of train­ing and sen­si­tiz­ing of­fi­cers on how to deal with such is­sues, she said it was one “where sur­vivors and vic­tims feel com­fort­able to come for­ward to have re­ports made and in­ves­ti­gat­ed where con­fi­den­tial­i­ty is up­per­most.”

For the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April 2020 – 781 re­ports were re­ceived; while for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April 2021 – 1,132 re­ports were re­ceived.

De­clar­ing do­mes­tic vi­o­lence to be a per­va­sive prob­lem glob­al­ly that can oc­cur with­in any cul­ture and so­cial class, Guy-Al­leyne as­sured the GB­VU op­er­ates, “A ro­bust case man­age­ment sys­tem where re­ports up­on re­ceipt, are thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed im­me­di­ate­ly and the sur­vivor or vic­tim is guid­ed through the process from the mak­ing of the re­port and the court process there­after.”

Reaf­firm­ing their ze­ro tol­er­ance ap­proach where ar­rests will lead to charges be­ing laid against per­pe­tra­tors, she added, “We even ap­ply for pro­tec­tion or­ders for the sur­vivors or vic­tims to as­sist them.”

Ad­mit­ting some do­mes­tic vi­o­lence vic­tims may be un­able to re­port in­ci­dents to the GB­VU due to be be­ing con­fined with their per­pe­tra­tors dur­ing the lock-down, Guy-Al­leyne said there were var­i­ous medi­ums that can be used to reach the TTPS.

These in­clude 555; 999; on-line re­port­ing; the TTPS app; and any po­lice sta­tion.

Asked what was the main fac­tor dri­ving in­ci­dents dur­ing this lock-down which be­gan on May 3, she said, “Most of the re­ports we have cen­tre around the cell-phone where one spouse will find the oth­er send­ing or re­ceiv­ing text mes­sages that are in­ap­pro­pri­ate and can cause a con­flict in the home and then vi­o­lence oc­curs.”

“These in­ci­dents are oc­cur­ring with both male and fe­male vic­tims.”

Mean­while, gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence, Sab­ri­na Mowlah-Baksh said while there has not been a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in the num­ber of in­ci­dents be­ing re­port­ed, “peo­ple are reach­ing out to us on a dai­ly ba­sis for ad­di­tion­al sup­port that goes be­yond our coun­selling ser­vices.”

Con­firm­ing peo­ple were ap­peal­ing for help in the form of care pack­ages, toi­letries and food ham­pers – she said some per­sons con­tin­ued to seek safe shel­ter as they are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing do­mes­tic abuse.

Of the sev­en shel­ters al­lo­cat­ed by civ­il so­ci­ety for such vic­tims, Mowlah-Baksh said on­ly four are cur­rent­ly op­er­a­tional with the lone-state fa­cil­i­ty be­ing com­plete­ly filled at this time.

In­di­cat­ing their client num­bers are con­stant­ly chang­ing, she ad­vised per­sons to con­tact 800-SAVE if they need help.

At­tribut­ing the slight in­crease in the in­ci­dents be­ing re­port­ed to vic­tims be­ing forced to co-habit with their at­tack­ers so they are care­ful­ly mon­i­tored – there­by re­duc­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­quest help, Mowlah-Baksh re­vealed, “We did have per­sons reach­ing out but we were told they would have to get back to us re­gard­ing when is a good time for us to speak with the vic­tims.”