Enforce laws to protect victims of domestic violence – WIN

Mar 15, 2026 News

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(Kaieteur News) – The government of Guyana was on Friday urged to enforce the country’s laws and support systems with the aim of arresting domestic violence.

The We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party in a statement on Friday cautioned that with the upsurge of domestic violence families are being torn apart. The country’s main opposition party said there are growing concerns about domestic violence escalating into murder.

The WIN party referenced four cases that occurred between January 1 and February 25, 2026.

“On March 8th, a day the world sets aside to celebrate women, another life was taken. Caslene Toney, a 39-year-old mother of six, was killed, leaving behind children as young as three years old. We have to ask ourselves: where are we heading as a society?” the statement said.

The party, led by businessman Azruddin Mohamed, reminded that Guyana has laws to protect and systems in place to support woman while urging that “they must be enforced earlier and more effectively so situations like these are addressed before families are torn apart.”

Further, the statement said citizens must be always protected by the law.

Last week, 39-year-old Caslene Toney, a mother of six, was stabbed to death by her reputed husband at Long Creek, Soesdyke-Linden Highway on March 8.

Her sister, Perlincia Toney, who spoke with Kaieteur News recently, recounted the horrifying events and described Caslene as a resilient woman who endured years of abuse.

Perlincia explained that her sister had been in the abusive relationship for over 20 years, only recently opening about her suffering. She revealed that she had reported incidents to the police, including an altercation last month when her reputed husband Morris Hugh reportedly wielded a cutlass and pushed her sister down.

“My sister does tell me how this man does do this thing all the time. When she’s in the backdam he does slap she, choke she up and all kind of thing. I ask my sister, ‘so why you don’t leave he? Just leave him alone and see how he would make it out with them children,’” Perlincia said.

Since she left school, that’s how long she with him,” the sister added.

Despite her pleas for Caslene to leave Hugh, her sister expressed fear of leaving their children with him.

Perlincia said she had even warned her sister that the abuse could eventually turn deadly. “She tell me one day they going in the backdam, the mining area. I used to tell she, ‘sister you see how he does treat you right here at home, much less in the backdam, he might kill you,’” she said.

Earlier this month, WIN representative Dr. Andre Lewis bemoaned the country’s spate of domestic violence noting that the numbers are alarming and warrant stronger preventative measures aimed at protecting the vulnerable.

Meanwhile, on March 1, 2026 Kaieteur News reported Dr. Lewis, a Member of Parliament, referencing statistics provided by the Crime Chief that indicated domestic violence murders doubled in 2025 with an increase of 13 in 2024 to 26 in 2025.

“In just two months of 2026 several more domestic related killings have already been reported. This shows that violence is not decreasing but there is shift towards more violence in the home,” he said.

Dr. Lewis said while the country’s laws address the matter there seems to be a challenge relative to its implementation.

“And we understand the cultural context of why it is difficult for implementing the laws. In many cases there are signs, there are prior threats or repeated abuse yet there is no clear explanation of what we have been doing after we have all this data on domestic violence, what we intend to use it for or what system we plan to put in place to counter some of what we are seeing in society,” he related.

The WIN MP noted too that there are several unreported cases due to fear of further abuse.

“…and for many people they stay in those situations because they are afraid, because they are financially dependent, because they are intimidated,” he added.

Dr. Lewis suggested that the government needs to employ systems that monitors reports.  “We can’t just issue an order, (and) take a report but we have to make sure that we are taking notes of when the protection orders are not followed so that we have that information in place,” he said.

He also suggested that, “We need to make sure that we are putting better system to protect the vulnerable in the situation. There should always be a quarterly publicly reporting on domestic violence data. Not revealing the names and all of that but let us understand what is happening in regard to reinforcement and what is not working so that we can go back to the drawing board and revisit and make changes as we go on.”

The WIN MP said that the new domestic violence and sexual offences unit must be properly resourced across the country and monitoring must be heightened to ensure there are fewer breaches of protection orders.

“But we indeed need to do is move from a system from where we react, to a system where we are more proactive in acknowledging that these are the issues that exist and this is how we should move forward with them in a sense of accountability but also consider that it is a sense of urgency because the numbers are quite alarming as I say,” Dr. Lewis said.

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• Domestic violence, Enforce laws, protect victims, We Invest in Nationhood

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