The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

FREE National Movement leader Michael Pintard said although his party supported the passage of the Protection Against Violence Bill last week, it believes the legislation is inadequate.

“We didn’t want to be on the wrong side of history that opposed any measure that was fighting violence in the country,” he said yesterday. “The desired impacts, specifically gender-based impacts, won’t be enormous because the bill is ill-conceived, but with any measure designed to fight violence of any form, we will be on the right side of history. The point the government missed is that your whole strategy on how to fight gender-based violence depends on your understanding of the definition of it. If you think it’s just like all kinds of violence, you’ll miss the mark when it comes to sensitivity training, for example.”

 In a statement yesterday, Mr Pintard said the FNM supports legislation that seeks to solve violence issues. However, he said the party is concerned the bill is being pushed in place of the Gender-Based Violence Bill without adequate input from stakeholders.

 “The Gender-Based Violence Bill has been widely consulted upon,” he said. “Numerous individuals and organisations have contributed to the discussion for more than a decade, and we are deeply disturbed that the collective work of so many has apparently been discarded in large measure by this PLP administration with little to no explanation as to why.”

 “The new bill clearly is dramatically smaller in scope and to date most stakeholders are unaware of what has been removed from the 2016 bill.”

 Mr Pintard said the administration aimed to pass the bill before the 13th Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministerial meeting in August. In May, Mr Davis’ wife, Ann Marie Davis, said she hoped the bill would be passed before the commonwealth meeting.

 “The nature of the bill,” Mr Pintard said, “inclusive of its name, falls short of the standards set in the global community for a bill that addresses gender-based violence according to some stakeholders, most especially Marion Bethel, the vice chairperson and rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Committee on Women & Girls Rights.”

 “This administration does not take dissent or criticisms well. Most often, they savage those with opposing views, or they dismiss them as a small interest group whose ‘fringe views’ should not be taken so seriously that it derails the governments’ agenda and timetable.”

 In defending the bill last week, Mr Davis said the changes capture efforts to broaden its impact.