A move to al­low same-sex (LGBT) peo­ple to ap­ply for pro­tec­tion or­ders un­der Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence law failed to re­ceive the nod of the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, as on­ly four In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed in favour of it, Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors vot­ed against, and Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors ab­stained.

The amend­ment was pro­posed by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Amend­ment Bill de­bate.

The Sen­ate was meet­ing to ex­pand the cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple who could ap­ply for pro­tec­tion or­ders when Thomp­son-Ahye pro­posed that peo­ple in same-sex re­la­tion­ships should be in­clud­ed.

How­ev­er, when it came to a vote, the Sen­ate did not ap­prove.

Ear­li­er in the sit­ting, Thomp­son-Ahye com­mend­ed the Gov­ern­ment for bring­ing leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

“To­day is a red-let­ter day. I com­mend Gov­ern­ment for the work that went in­to this bill. I humbly say I beg your par­don and you have de­liv­ered some blos­soms in this bill.”

She said Gov­ern­ment, with ref­er­ence to LGBT is­sues, had shown a gen­der-neu­tral po­si­tion.

“So we can’t be talk­ing out of both sides of our mouth, we can’t turn back now. Some in same-sex re­la­tion­ships have been killed. But their lives can be saved,” she said.

Thomp­son-Ahye said dur­ing one In­de­pen­dence pa­rade, a man pelt­ed her with a bot­tle and stone.

“I had to run but he was be­ing abused due to his ori­en­ta­tion,” she said.

She said she wrote about the fact it was sad for gays in T&T.

“Pro­tec­tion should be for all,” she said, not­ing T&T recog­nis­es mar­riage on­ly for het­ero­sex­u­al cou­ples and not same-sex cou­ples.

“I don’t ad­vo­cate we do (same-sex mar­riage) but it’s very im­por­tant we have pro­tec­tion for them – will we dis­play courage of con­vic­tion and in­clude same-sex peo­ple (in the bill)?”

Thomp­son-Ahye re­lat­ed that one of her do­mes­tic vi­o­lence clients was mur­dered. An­oth­er spent a night hid­ing in a La Hor­quet­ta drain. Still, an­oth­er spent a day hid­ing in a park and yet an­oth­er woman’s skull was frac­tured.

“And a young neigh­bour was shot dead by her hus­band. He shot him­self,” she con­clud­ed.

Thomp­son-Ahye said she’d al­so rep­re­sent­ed a man who’d com­plained his wife dam­aged his things and he was try­ing to see his wife at 2 am.

“I told him stop stalk­ing your wife—re­build your life. He stopped, tried and was hap­py af­ter.

“An­oth­er client’s wife told him ‘shut up’ in our meet­ing. It turned out he was the sac­ri­fi­cial lamb af­ter years of abuse her moth­er suf­fered by her fa­ther.“

Ques­tion­ing why cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment was re­tained, she added, “And we won­der why we so vi­o­lent —we make the chil­dren vi­o­lent.”

Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus said the bill was to pro­tect all. Say­ing men were af­fect­ed al­so, she not­ed a re­cent in­ci­dent where a 22-year-old man was stabbed by a fe­male.

She added, “My ad­vice to my sis­ters is what ca­lyp­son­ian Francine said, “run away, far far away,’ from the abu­sive rel­a­tive.” (GA)