Activist wants deeper probes into abuse cases

Gender activist Nadeen Spence is suggesting that judges order investigations into the circumstances when women seek to have cases against their abusive spouses dropped.

Spence said there are many factors why a woman may opt for this route, including fear for her life and financial constraints.

"I think the judges need to ask for a background check and investigate the circumstances around the relationship. I would suggest that a probation officer go to the home or the community and find out what is happening because sometimes perhaps she is afraid of her life. Sometimes she would want to know if she would be taken out of the situation and placed somewhere where she is safe," she said.

On Monday, a Trelawny woman, who was so badly stabbed that her intestines were protruding, begged the court to release her alleged attacker, her ex-boyfriend. Also recently, a Corporate Area man, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison for hitting his babymother, was given a suspended sentence after she begged the judge not to imprison him as he was the primary caregiver for their child. Spence said that unfortunately, not enough research has been done on the topic of gender-based violence to sensitise the population.

"If you were to look at where research is done, what it tells you is that a lot of the time the women go back to the abusive relationships and they will not even turn up at the court to testify. There is this tendency to forgive and most of the times the women will not leave until a life other than their own is threatened. So if their children are being impacted in a particular way, then it sometimes speed them up wanting to leave," she said.

Spence also said that a woman who chooses to remain in an abusive relationship should not be labelled as an 'idiot' as one does not always know the reason behind her decision.

"I will not scoff at it (the decision to stay) ... but what I would want to know is what are the factors that are leading her to make her decisions. The fact that she may be asking the judge to put away her child's father and the hurt that it may cause the child will make her want to move to forgiveness immediately," she said.