Leela Ramdeen

Let’s work to rid our com­mu­ni­ties/our world of the ab­hor­rent crime of do­mes­tic abuse. We can­not be neu­tral in the face of this in­jus­tice, which ob­scures the dig­ni­ty of both the vic­tim and the per­pe­tra­tor; it di­min­ish­es/de­hu­man­is­es all of us.

Do­mes­tic abuse in­cludes: phys­i­cal or sex­u­al abuse, vi­o­lent or threat­en­ing be­hav­iour, con­trol­ling or co­er­cive be­hav­iour, eco­nom­ic, psy­cho­log­i­cal, or emo­tion­al abuse, on­line or dig­i­tal abuse, ex­ploita­tion, iso­la­tion, mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion, en­slave­ment - vic­tims of mod­ern slav­ery, traf­fick­ing, in­ap­pro­pri­ate pres­sure, ha­rass­ment, stalk­ing, fe­male gen­i­tal mu­ti­la­tion, forced mar­riage and “ho­n­our-based” abuse.

While both men and women may ex­pe­ri­ence do­mes­tic abuse, women are more like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence re­peat­ed and se­vere forms of abuse. Do­mes­tic abuse has an ad­verse im­pact on chil­dren al­so. The dig­ni­ty of the hu­man per­son is the foun­da­tion of a moral vi­sion for so­ci­ety. It refers to the “in­trin­sic val­ue of a per­son cre­at­ed in the im­age and like­ness of God and re­deemed by Christ” (Pope Bene­dict XVI, 2008). Each of us is en­dowed with an in­alien­able dig­ni­ty which must be re­spect­ed and pro­tect­ed. At­ti­tu­di­nal and be­hav­iour­al changes are crit­i­cal if we are to achieve our goals. By rais­ing our aware­ness of the is­sues, not on­ly can we take ac­tion our­selves, but we can call for ac­count­abil­i­ty and ac­tion from de­ci­sion-mak­ers.

On Sat­ur­day, Au­gust 9, I was one of the speak­ers at a Do­mes­tic Abuse Aware­ness event at the Sev­enth Day Ad­ven­tist Cen­tral Church, Il­ford, Lon­don. It was or­gan­ised by au­thor Dr Janelle Vic­to­ry, founder of Women of Ex­cel­lence Foun­da­tion. (See You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/live/E4_PNbPD7_A ).

I shared in­for­ma­tion about:

- the UK’s Do­mes­tic Abuse Act 2021, in­clud­ing the de­f­i­n­i­tion of Do­mes­tic Abuse

- the pub­li­ca­tion by the Min­istry of Jus­tice and the Home Of­fice (No­vem­ber 28, 2024), in­tro­duc­ing new mea­sures to pro­tect vic­tims of do­mes­tic abuse, in­clud­ing Do­mes­tic Abuse Pro­tec­tion No­tices and Or­ders;

- The role/work of

a. Dame Nicole Ja­cobs, Do­mes­tic Abuse Com­mis­sion­er, who pro­vides pub­lic lead­er­ship on do­mes­tic abuse is­sues. She is the first Do­mes­tic Abuse Com­mis­sion­er for Eng­land and Wales - ap­point­ed in 2019 as an in­de­pen­dent ad­vi­sor to the Gov­ern­ment. Read her an­nu­al re­port 2022-2023;

b. Hon Jess Phillips, Min­is­ter for Safe­guard­ing and Vi­o­lence Against Women and Girls;

c. Hon Alex Davies-Jones, Min­is­ter for Vic­tims and Vi­o­lence Against Women and Girls;

d. The Na­tion­al Cen­tre for Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Tel: 0800 970 2070 or 0207 186 8270
;

e. Or­gan­i­sa­tions such as Refuge, which op­er­ates the Freep­hone Na­tion­al Do­mes­tic Abuse Helpline (0808 2000 247). Refuge “acts as the gate­way to all ser­vices across the coun­try and helps women find a space in a refuge,” Women’s Aid, Re­spect Men, Mankind, Cit­i­zens Ad­vice, Kar­ma Nir­vana, which deals with forced mar­riage and ho­n­our-based abuse;

- The Voice News­pa­per’s re­port on re­search by Sis­tah Space (Au­gust 4, 2025), in­volv­ing more than 2,200 Black women across Eng­land and Wales, and their new film, Hid­den in Plain Sight - ex­pos­ing “hor­rif­ic do­mes­tic abuse faced by Black women in UK.” The re­search un­cov­ered “a strik­ing pat­tern of un­der­re­port­ing, re­peat­ed trau­ma, and in­sti­tu­tion­al ne­glect”;

- How to sup­port vic­tims of do­mes­tic abuse.

Leg­is­la­tion alone is not enough to de­feat this crime. We must build right re­la­tion­ships. This starts in the home eg how we so­cialise our chil­dren, and the way in which par­ents, guardians, cit­i­zens be­have to­wards each oth­er. Con­science for­ma­tion is in­flu­enced by the cul­ture in the home/so­ci­ety.

Sta­tis­tics tak­en from eg Do­mes­tic Abuse in Eng­land & Wales Overview, Of­fice for Na­tion­al Sta­tis­tics, Nov 2024, show that:

- The po­lice re­ceive a do­mes­tic abuse-re­lat­ed call every 30 sec­onds. Yet it is es­ti­mat­ed that less than 24% of do­mes­tic abuse crime is re­port­ed to the po­lice;

- In the year end­ing March 2024, it is es­ti­mat­ed 2,307,000 mil­lion peo­ple aged 16 and over were vic­tims of do­mes­tic abuse (1.6 mil­lion women and 712,000 men);

- It is es­ti­mat­ed that every day, al­most 30 women at­tempt sui­cide as a re­sult of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing do­mes­tic abuse and every week, three women take their own lives;

- There were 108 do­mes­tic homi­cides in the year end­ing March 2024, of these, 83 were women and 25 were men; 66 of these vic­tims were killed by a part­ner or ex-part­ner.

* In T&T, help can be ac­cessed via e.g. the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Hot­line: 800 7283, Child­Line: 800 4321, Po­lice: 999, Life­line (Sui­cide): 645-2800 / 645-6616, Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety: 622-7273, Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty: 800 2014.

Let’s re­view T&T’s ac­tion plan on this is­sue and join forces to break the cy­cle/elim­i­nate do­mes­tic abuse, thus en­abling each per­son to re­alise his or her po­ten­tial.