The law and the victim of Domestic Abuse

Jul 25, 2022 Letters

Dear Editor,

Nothing justifies abuse, except the victim who has become so comfortable within the environment, the victim who believes that without the abuser, there will be no way to have basic necessities for survival, the victim who thinks about the family unit and the destruction abandonment will cause to that unit or the psychological effects it will have on the child/ children. These factors among others are often the reasons why the victims renege on the decision to leave.

This indecisiveness sometimes reaches to the law, and when it does there is frustration, especially when the authority realises that the victim is unsure of whether or not she/he wants to pursue the matter in court. But how can we change this? The path to escape from domestic violence starts with the police arm of the law and not necessarily the victim, since the victim cannot at times make clear decisions for themselves and wellbeing due to their empathic nature and level of co-dependency with their abuser.

The police like every other individual are human, their feelings of the frustration and exasperation of having to deal with the same situation/complaint over and over is understood but should not justified.
If we are to be able to understand the plight of victims of abuse especially when the abuser is a narcissist, we will know that the victim accepts the dysfunction as a norm and as such, it is easier for that victim to accept the abuse than to start over.

So how can the law help, in Guyana? I know that officers are trained to deal with issues surrounding domestic violence, but how intense is the training? Does this training instill teachings on recognising the signs, patterns, types of domestic abuse? Does training help officers to understand that victims can sometimes seems responsible for the treatment they receive thus it’s okay for them not to say “she looking for the nonsense” or “if you know he/ she doing you this, why you don’t leave? Why you keep dropping the charges or not showing up to court?”
More needs to be done: a victim is sometimes that headless chicken who has no sense of direction and doesn’t understand what is happening around them; they are sometimes the last to see that they are victims of abuse.

What we need to know is if there are trained officers who are specifically placed at police stations to deal with cases of domestic abuse, offer counselling and provide the best advice to victims, are there people within the law patient enough to hear the same story over and over and not become frustrated to the extent that they don’t care?
Are there officers who we can hold responsible when a victim becomes so battered or sometimes die because of suicide or at the hands of their abusers?
Collaborative efforts are needed, the family, the law, institutions for suicide prevention and domestic violence.

These bodies need to unite now. Victims are vulnerable, their thought processes are skewed: they do not operate from a place of healing or wanting better, their vulnerability makes them return to the abuse or out of empathy refuse to pursue matters within the court, put simply victims of abuse need help, they need confidential and patient human resources, they need to know that their government has systems in place to help them rehabilitate Before everything else they need to be told that it’s okay to let go of what is causing their hurt without judgement . But this starts with the law.
How law enforcement chooses to deal with these sensitive issues sets the precedence for every other stage of healing, justice and recovery for the abused victim.

Atika Stephens

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The law and the victim of Domestic Abuse

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