Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe has called on the pub­lic to go be­yond rou­tine greet­ings and ask, “How are things at home?” as part of ef­forts to de­tect un­re­solved con­flict and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

He made the state­ment at a walkathon host­ed by the Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al Es­per­ance Club days af­ter he at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al of Siparia coun­cil­lor Ra­mona Vic­tor.

Vic­tor was beat­en to death by her part­ner, Rod­ney Ram­sumair, who lat­er took his own life on No­vem­ber 23. Ex­press­ing sor­row over Vic­tor’s death, Dr Bo­doe said Vic­tor had vis­it­ed his con­stituen­cy of­fice short­ly be­fore her death.

He said she ap­peared calm and raised no con­cerns about her per­son­al life, choos­ing in­stead to dis­cuss mat­ters re­lat­ed to her work.

He urged peo­ple to pay at­ten­tion when ask­ing oth­ers about their well-be­ing.

“When you ask, ‘How are you do­ing?’ peo­ple will say they are okay. The sec­ond ques­tion that needs to be asked is, ‘How are things at home? How is your fam­i­ly?’” he said.

He en­cour­aged peo­ple to ob­serve ex­pres­sions and oth­er signs that some­one may need help.

Dr Bo­doe told par­tic­i­pants they have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to recog­nise sig­nals of dis­tress and sup­port those who may be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing vi­o­lence.

He al­so not­ed the on­go­ing 16 Days of Ac­tivism Against Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence, which be­gan on No­vem­ber 25.

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic that sev­er­al agen­cies, in­clud­ing the Min­istry of Health, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and the TTPS, pro­vide re­sources and hot­lines for sup­port.

He linked the ap­peal to the min­istry’s Step In­to Well­ness pro­gramme, which in­cludes men­tal health ser­vices. Dr Bo­doe said well­ness re­quires at­ten­tion to men­tal health and en­cour­aged con­tin­ued par­tic­i­pa­tion in re­lat­ed ini­tia­tives.

Mean­while, Sorop­tomist In­ter­na­tion­al Pro­gramme ac­tion of­fi­cer Char­maine Latch­man-Singh said the walkathon formed part of the club’s an­nu­al ac­tiv­i­ties for the 16 Days of Ac­tivism, which run from No­vem­ber 25 to De­cem­ber 10. She said this year’s theme, “Unite to End Dig­i­tal Vi­o­lence Against All Women and Girls,” re­flects the need to ad­dress harm­ful be­hav­iour that oc­curs through on­line plat­forms and dig­i­tal de­vices.

Ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Farah Ab­dul said dig­i­tal gen­der-based vi­o­lence cov­ers ac­tions car­ried out through phones, com­put­ers and on­line spaces.

She said this in­cludes cy­ber­bul­ly­ing, sex­ting, sex­tor­tion and harm­ful mes­sages sent through so­cial me­dia, text or email.

Ab­dul said these ac­tions can af­fect young peo­ple who spend much of their time on­line.

She said chil­dren are ex­posed to tech­nol­o­gy at a young age and may en­counter un­safe be­hav­iour through gam­ing plat­forms and oth­er ap­pli­ca­tions.

She said this in­creas­es the need for ear­ly ed­u­ca­tion on dig­i­tal safe­ty.

Ab­dul out­lined ex­am­ples of on­line bul­ly­ing, in­clud­ing mes­sages in­tend­ed to de­mean or tar­get a peer.

She said these ac­tions can lead to se­ri­ous emo­tion­al harm, in­clud­ing sui­ci­dal thoughts in some cas­es.

Ab­dul said the group aimed to raise aware­ness by dis­play­ing plac­ards and ban­ners with hot­line num­bers and in­for­ma­tion on sup­port ser­vices.

These in­clude 800-SAVE for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, 800-COPE for sui­cide pre­ven­tion, 999 for emer­gen­cies and the TTPS cy­ber­crime unit for on­line of­fences.

Ab­dul urged the pub­lic to re­port in­ci­dents and to be cau­tious when shar­ing con­tent on­line, not­ing that dig­i­tal ma­te­r­i­al re­mains ac­ces­si­ble once post­ed.