By DENISE MAYCOCK
Tribune Staff Reporter
dmaycock@tribunemedia.net
AMID concerns over delays in the creation of a domestic violence shelter, Minister of Social Services Myles Laroda said it is on the government’s agenda and will be completed shortly.
While in Grand Bahama on Thursday, the minister was asked about the status of the government-promised shelter for victims and survivors of domestic violence.
“Stay tuned, it is coming; it is on the agenda,” he told The Tribune. “The government, as we speak, is in the process of acquiring a facility which has already been identified.
“It is just going through the paperwork and the acquisition. We won’t say the place because we want to protect those individuals who would be staying there. But stay tuned. Words say anything; we will lead by example; we show better than we can tell.”
Even though some $500,000 has been allocated by the government for the establishment of a facility, FNM Senator Maxine Seymour, Shadow Minister for Social Services, said women are still awaiting a promised shelter.
Women groups have been advocating for a safe haven that will provide relief for abused women and girls from their abusers.
There have also been criticisms that the Department of Gender and Family Affairs has been ineffective.
A women’s rights advocate complained there is no director and that the Department has done nothing of substance, even during the Global 16 Days Campaign and Women’s History Month, and said the Gender-Based Violence Bill had been “completely abandoned”. Alicia Wallace, of Equality Bahamas, also said that requests for a meeting with the minister had not received a response.
She said: “Equality Bahamas has been, through the Department of Gender and Family Affairs, been requesting a meeting with the Minister since 2023 and has yet to receive a substantive response. There should be no fear of meeting with an NGO, and there certainly should not be a non-response. We call on the minister to schedule a meeting with us or communicate that he is unwilling to meet stakeholders.
“There is limited information available on the plan for the shelters. There is a difference, for example, between an emergency shelter which tends to be very short-term, as limited as one night, and more long-term accommodations for survivors of domestic violence who, obviously, have to leave their places of residences. How long will women be housed at the shelter? Will women with children, and boy children over the age of 12 in particular, be accommodated? What additional support will be provided to those accommodated by the
shelter? The basic needs of survivors range from food and hygiene products to physical and mental health services.”
However, Mr Laroda said a director had been appointed. He said Melvelyn Symonette had been there for a while, and prior to that, Dr Jacinta Higgs had been appointed by the former administration to serve as the director.
Comments
rosiepi 8 months, 2 weeks ago
There’s been a different story every six months from these guys about this subject, I do remember the announcement that several of these houses were being built and/or acquired throughout Nassau but we couldn’t know whether they actually existed for security reasons.
Yet again another announcement that makes absolutely no sense to any woman or child facing a daily threat of violence in her home, nor should it make sense to accept these lies from Davis & Co.
The_Oracle 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Usually in the case of a violent domestic offender the offender is arrested and taken out of the domestic situation they are disrupting and incarcerated! Hence why the need for even more government overreach beyond their constitutionally mandated obligations? Fact is government cannot accomplish even the simplest of their lawful obligations without padded contracts/massive hiring/Incompetence and dismal failure ending in nothing to show for it and silence.
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