RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As T&T cel­e­brates In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day to­day, prime min­is­ter-des­ig­nate Stu­art Young is promis­ing tougher penal­ties for do­mes­tic vi­o­lence of­fend­ers and im­me­di­ate ac­tion to pro­tect women.

Speak­ing at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter’s In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day Break­fast at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day, Young said the is­sue of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence must be tack­led head-on, not just through leg­is­la­tion but as a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.

Whether or not the is­sue in­volves in­ti­mate part­ners, Young said it was a scourge that must be erad­i­cat­ed soon.

“I will urge the Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment to in­crease penal­ties and sen­tences for those com­mit­ting these heinous acts against our women. I firm­ly be­lieve such be­hav­iour oc­curs at all so­ci­etal lev­els and must be con­demned,” Young said.

He added: “I be­lieve we must stand up and let the per­sons who are com­mit­ting these acts know that we are not ac­cept­ing it. If I know that is how you be­have, don’t come up to me and shake my hand be­cause I frown on what you do.”

Young said stronger penal­ties and sen­tenc­ing would be one of his first ini­tia­tives.

“We will en­hance pro­tec­tion for women ob­tain­ing pro­tec­tion or­ders. This will be a sig­nif­i­cant fo­cus,” he said.

Young al­so said the Gov­ern­ment must go be­yond leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress the prob­lem.

“I know some­times the per­pe­tra­tors of these heinous acts don’t have the men­tal abil­i­ty.. they don’t have the where­with­al to han­dle these sit­u­a­tions. That is not an ex­cuse for them. But we must find ways to as­sist be­cause that is the on­ly way we can deal with that aw­ful scourge that is creep­ing too fast for my lik­ing. Mere­ly im­ple­ment­ing laws isn’t enough,” he said.

He re­vealed that he would al­so seek to pro­vide pro­fes­sion­al as­sis­tance to per­pe­tra­tors.

“I will seek Cab­i­net sup­port to pro­vide pro­fes­sion­al as­sis­tance, in­clud­ing psy­chi­a­trists and psy­chol­o­gists, through pro­grammes util­is­ing the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. This sup­port will tar­get ar­eas lack­ing ac­cess to such re­sources. I un­der­stand the pos­i­tive im­pact this can have on women in our so­ci­ety. This is an­oth­er com­mit­ment I make,” Young said.

He not­ed that re­sources would be al­lo­cat­ed ef­fec­tive­ly.

“This Gov­ern­ment won’t en­gage in su­per­fi­cial mea­sures or in­dis­crim­i­nate spend­ing. We have es­tab­lished a sol­id foun­da­tion, and I in­tend to el­e­vate it to sup­port women in our so­ci­ety. I com­mit to im­ple­ment­ing these pro­grammes,” he said.

Young al­so re­flect­ed on the role of women in so­ci­ety and the coun­try’s progress in gen­der equal­i­ty.

“Over the last ten years, women have as­sumed their right­ful po­si­tions of lead­er­ship in our twin-is­land state. We were pi­o­neers in hav­ing a woman as head of state, as well as po­si­tions like pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and speak­er of the House in the past decade,” he said.

He said many per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and di­vi­sion heads in the pub­lic sec­tor were women, out­num­ber­ing men in lead­er­ship roles.

“I com­mend Trinidad and To­ba­go for lead­ing by ex­am­ple. When we ex­am­ine sta­tis­tics, we see de­vel­oped coun­tries striv­ing for gen­der equal­i­ty. I al­ways smile be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go is among the world’s lead­ers in this area,” he said.

He said the Gov­ern­ment had fo­cused on in­creas­ing equal­i­ty and eq­ui­ty to en­sure women had a safer space to ex­cel.

“Lead­er­ship isn’t con­fined to the top; it per­me­ates all lev­els of our struc­ture,” he said.

Young paid trib­ute to his moth­er, Priscil­la Young, say­ing his ex­pe­ri­ences grow­ing up shaped his views.

“I grew up wit­ness­ing the im­pact of a strong woman in a house­hold. My moth­er, along­side my fa­ther, made de­ci­sions that pri­ori­tised fam­i­ly. Dis­cus­sions about my back­ground are un­nec­es­sary; they are shal­low, and we have moved be­yond that. I am a prod­uct of a strong woman who put her chil­dren and hus­band first,” Young said.

He said en­sur­ing sup­port for women in so­ci­ety would be a key fo­cus of his Gov­ern­ment.

“We must fo­cus on im­ple­men­ta­tion to sup­port women through­out so­ci­ety, en­sur­ing every child ben­e­fits from sup­port­ed women who have some­one to con­fide in. This will be a cor­ner­stone of the gov­ern­ment I lead,” he said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on whether she will sup­port Young’s ini­tia­tive, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed via What­sApp say­ing: “Why didn’t he do this over the last ten years? Is he now say­ing that (Kei­th) Row­ley didn’t care about vic­tims of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence?

He (Young) was Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice, yet did noth­ing over ten years in Gov­ern­ment to aid vic­tims. He owes the coun­try an ex­pla­na­tion as to why he didn’t do this since 2015.”