Tara Ramsaroop and her 14-month-old daughter Jada Motilal were murdered on October 8. -
PEOPLE should look out for red flags that suggest a man may be about to kill his wife, advised Lucy Gabriel, head of the Lifeline hotline for the suicidal and despairing.
Lifeline is a registered non-profit organisation. It's website, Lifelinett.com, says it's primary aim is to "be available at any hour of the day or night to offer emotional support to those passing through personal crises and in imminent danger of taking their own lives."
She spoke to Newsday on October 13, following a week of two women murdered by male relatives while one survived getting stabbed.
Tara Ramsaroop, 34 and her daughter Jada Mootilal, 14 months, were chopped to death in Barrackpore on October 8.
On October 11, Anna Ellis, 40, of Dibe Road, St James survived a stabbing by a man she knows who then abducted her 12-year-old son who has since been found unharmed.
Laura Sankar, 34 was chopped to death in front of her 16-year-old son in Princes Town on October 12.
Domestic murders did not happen overnight, Gabriel said, but were often preceded by a string of occasions of the man beating his relative.
"In the three cases, the situation blew up but had been going on before for a while," she said.
"You have to reach that man sitting very quietly in the corner who is filled with the anger and is contemplating killing his wife and child."
Gabriel said that just as in the tragic beheading of four-year-old Amarah Lallitte by her male relative last April, in at least one femicide in the past week, the woman had previously complained to the police before her murder. Gabriel viewed such murders as "a slow-moving train," perceptibly approaching the victim.
She lamented that many efforts were now being made to reach such men but were often missing the mark, even as she regrettably expected spousal murders to continue.
Of spousal murders in general, she asked, "What was he doing two-three days before he killed her? He carefully planned that (murder) and was accustomed to beating her."
She said someone should document how many times a woman had got beaten by a man before he murdered her, and how many complaints were made to the police.
Gabriel said when such tragedies were reported, people became agitated but did not put in a sustained effort towards change. "It is a nine-day wonder."
She said, "The system to meet the abuser – as he is and where he is – is not happening. There have been complaints about his abuse time and time again."
Gabriel said it was now quite hard to find space to place an abused woman in a domestic violence shelter. She said she knew of people wishing to run shelters but lacking funds.
"You can hardly find a halfway house to send people to."
Gabriel was also concerned that state-funded programmes were not actually reaching the men needing intervention.
"Do they get an amount of funding to have an effect? How effective are those services to meet the needs of someone in dire straits?
She noted that Lifeline gets no public funding. "Does Lifeline have resources to make a significant difference? The answer is no."
Gabriel linked an upsurge in domestic violence to a current downturn in the economy, such as resulting in an individual's frustration at not being able to pay his rent.
She viewed financial woes as posing a worse threat of causing domestic violence that did infidelity.
"The stress of the downturn in the economy can trip it (relationship) into violence.
"The economic situation means more people will fall through the net."
Those who are distressed and need someone to listen can call Lifeline at 800-5588, 866-5433 (toll free for bmobile and Digicel customers) or 220-3636 (for Flow customers).
