The Tribune

By LETRE SWEETING

Tribune Staff Reporter

lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

SOCIAL Services Minister Obie Wilchcombe said officials are preparing four new shelters for women, the first of which would be ready in a few weeks.

He said the shelters, including one in Grand Bahama, will be opened before the end of the year.

He spoke to reporters after a discussion forum on the Protection Against Violence Bill and proposed amendments to the Sexual Offences Act.

“The shelters are being prepared now and we’re getting more facilities for women with difficulties,” he said. “We want to be very sensitive.”

“We have found other places and we’re preparing them now. We hopefully will see the transition very soon.”

Mr Wilchcombe told reporters in April that his ministry spent a “considerable amount” on shelters for women and children fleeing domestic abuse.

“Last month, we spent about $2.4m,” he said at the time, saying this was “just on shelters that we are renting from the places”.

“It’s a significant amount of money and we have to find ways to reduce it,” he added.

Mr Wilchcombe said he is preparing a protocol for transitioning residents of some safe houses to other facilities at a reduced cost.

Inspector Kendra Wallace-Whyms, a member of the recently-established Domestic Violence Unit of the police force, said: “I’ve never seen so many protection orders come in my office since July to now. Women come into the office daily: married women, single women, they walk to the office with their children pleading for help.

“We have always had a safe housing problem, even when I was a social worker some 20 years ago. That was always an issue. So looking back from then to now, we are going somewhere. Women now have a choice. Now we have housing for these families and their children.

“In a matter of weeks you are going to see something very powerful, where housing is going to come on stream and then another housing right behind that one,” she said.