The three pillars of victim centred engagement with survivors of gender-based violence are respect, empathy, and maintaining the dignity of the person.
Human rights educator Adeola Young made the statement during a police sensitisation session on gender-based violence (GBV) facilitated by the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, at the Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Belmont, on Friday.
The officers present were from the Gender-Based Violence Unit, Child Protection Unit, and the Inter-Agency Task Force.
Young said gender-based violence was a human rights issue which applied to men, women, non-binary people, and children.
'GBV is about a power imbalance. The violence is carried out with the intent to harm and humiliate the victim.'
She said while it affects women disproportionately, men are also abused, but do not feel comfortable reporting owing to the gender roles and the accompanying behaviours society imposes on them.
Young said there had been an increase in instances of domestic violence during the pandemic, both worldwide and in TT. However, officers disagreed saying there was no clear link to the pandemic; that in many cases the abuse started years before and was only now being reported because the GBV unit had been established. They said people would normally go to their families to cool off when tempers were high but were calling the police to de-escalate situations during the locked down.
Young said that these factors could mostly be attributed to the changes in society brought about by the pandemic and its attendant measures.
She outlined the various forms which GBV can take. These include physical violence, which can range from slapping and hitting, to murders and encompasses trafficking and safety.
'It may be done not only to cause pain but to control and take away dignity and self-determination. It sends a clear message that 'I can do things to you that you don't want to happen.'
She said lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people were especially vulnerable to physical violence, which could be spontaneous or planned.
Verbal violence is another form, which can include picong, saying bad things or making up stories about someone, calling a woman a whore, insulting a man's genitals, insulting someone because of their ethnicity, e.g., Vene or Chinee.
'Psychological abuse is based on power and control and can take the form of isolation and confinement, withholding information, disinformation, threatening behaviour, gaslighting, invasion of privacy, intentionally neglecting your partner's needs, and lying and manipulating their family and friends.'
She said sexual violence is defined as non-consensual sexual contact of any type, or causing another person to interact sexually with another person, as in forced threesomes. These include marital rape, attempted rape, stealthing, date rape, unsolicited nudes, secret filming of sexual acts, being forced to watch someone masturbate, forced unsafe sex, sexual harassment, unwanted advances, and tou
