BPW directed alleged victim to housing sources

The shelter which rescues domestic abuse victims whose lives are at risk is making it clear that plans were never in the works for the 33-year-old mother of eight who claims she ran from an abusive partner to come to seek refuge at the shelter.

Crisis centre coordinator for the Business and Professional Women’s Club (BPW) Marlene Hewitt, told Barbados TODAY that management of the shelter interviewed Tachima Brathwaite [not her real name] and from the findings, concluded that the mother did not meet the requirement at that time to be allowed a space at the facility.

“From speaking to her and listening to everything, we recognized it was not a case of her being at risk of being killed. Her challenge was housing so we would have tried to contact the places that we would contact, in order to try to assist her. We can’t provide housing, but we can help in terms of contacting the agencies or giving her the information that she may need to carry to an agency,” Hewitt said.

In Barbados TODAY’s Monday edition, Brathwaite related her emotional story of alleged abuse and living in uncomfortable accommodation with her estranged partner and their children. She said that someone had contacted BPWC on her behalf and they were told that she may be able to seek refuge there for three months but would only be allowed to have the baby with her.

Hewitt explained that once investigations revealed that the alleged victim’s life is at risk, or could be at risk, they would be immediately accommodated. She pointed out that  someone cannot call and ask to come to the shelter and get in automatically.

“We do our work to find out what is the issue, how serious it is, and if it is something that someone can be accommodated at a friend or relative’s home, or whatever, we don’t just say come to the shelter. It seems as though she was involved in domestic violence but she had left.

“It was not a case of her life being at risk. Remember every domestic violence case does not mean the person’s life is at risk at that point in time. So we deal with it according to what you say and what the situation is at that time. If you are at risk of losing your life we will take you and your children. We do not have limits on how many children can come,” she said.

“If you are a boy and you are over 14, depending on the situation we may house you in another place that is safe where you and your mother can still interact and that is only because if the boy is very tall and big sometimes that can intimidate the other clients in the shelter,” Hewitt added.

The coordinator of the crisis centre further explained that because domestic violence cases are complicated, there is a need to pay attention to every case and get to the bottom of the issue.

She added that at this point in time, there are a lot of women and children at the shelter who are considered high-risk. Hewitt said while the building has a capacity, the shelter’s management tries its best not to reach that limit.

“The numbers vary. Today we may have two and tomorrow we may have ten. We always have women here. We have never been empty since we opened in 1999, but the number varies. In the middle of COVID when we were on lockdown, we did not see an increase in numbers when we looked at last year statistics.

“What people were calling about was because people were in lockdown, we saw a lot of family conflict, but not domestic violence conflict, there is a difference,” she said.
(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)