#BTColumn – Whither the children of domestic violence?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

Another woman has lost her life in Barbados, seemingly at the hands of an intimate relation. I extend my condolences to the family of Tanya, particularly her six-year-old son, who has been left with a significant hole in his life which can never really be filled.

While we allow space for the police to conduct their investigations, there are a few broad points I wish to make in the aftermath of the current tragedy. The first one is centered on the children of relationships characterized by intimate partner violence and tragedy. These children need continuous and professional mental health support, and the provision of it should be borne by the state.

While children who lose a parent to intimate partner violence in particular need this support, the children who live in daily circumstances of volatility and dysfunction also need to be catered for. Both research and anecdotes have suggested that children who live in homes with intimate partner violence are likely to either become victims or perpetrators of intimate partner violence.

Intervention and support for children is a critical way to interrupt the cycle of violence. Those children who lose parents to violence automatically fall into the ‘at risk’ and need special support and management. Often we undermine the impact of the loss of a parent at the hands of another parent or loved one. This is a complex negotiation of feelings for the child.

Those who are charged with making decisions about the child left after an act of intimate partner violence need to be adequately trained for their roles. I believe that we need a few specialist social workers in the area of managing children affected by intimate partner violence. It is my view that too many times we make the decisions that are best for the adults involved in the aftermath and not the child at the centre of the tragedy.

For instance, in one of the cases here in Barbados where a woman lost her life, the court ruled that the minor child she left was to visit the mother of the man who killed her. Grandparents in Barbados do not have parental rights. Additionally, think of what the family of the woman killed has to endure emotionally every time they are forced to visit that grandmother to hand over the child.

Who has assessed the environment that that child is going to? What is the child being told about the incident? How are the child’s views and perceptions about both mother and father being managed? How often, if at all, does that arrangement come up for review and who is determining if the child is benefitting or being further scarred emotionally?

Another set of stakeholders that we are not doing enough to manage in the aftermath of intimate partner killings of women are the family members of victims. Some families endure the indignity of extremely long delays in seeing the prosecution of the person responsible for the death of their loved one.

Several names and examples can be given of the delay here, but I want to use this opportunity to particularly single out the death of Kimberly Hinds on March 17th, 2013 as one that has taken an unacceptable amount of time to be brought to conclusion. Her family has been recently trying through the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution to get her matter back on the Court docket. After being promised that the matter would be given some priority, a list was circulated in the media for the accused to come to court and the name of her alleged murderer did not appear.

Kimberly was a mother of two. Her family had tried their best to shield her from the attack that eventually took her life. They have spent thousands of dollars in legal representation and related matters and feel all they can now do is watch time limp toward the ten-year mark where their loved one was violently taken from them without even a day of ventilation at a trial.

Their grief and frustration are mocked every time they see the accused, who has been on bail for some time and is free to be in society. He has moved on with his life and is free to enjoy all the things that Kimberly cannot.

Every time a woman is killed in Barbados all of us as a society fail.  When we fail to support the child or children left by the incident, we carry forward the seeds that caused the tragic incident to occur. When we ignore the pain and suffering of the families left to grapple with the loss of loved ones, we harbor discontent and deprive some of the most deserving people of justice.

Marsha Hinds is the President of the National Organisation of Women