STOPPING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS EVERYBODY’s RESPONSIBILITY

Stopping domestic violence in the country is everybody’s responsibility, says Police Commissioner Frank Prendergast.

Strongly condemning the recent death of a five months pregnant mother from Konola village, North-East Guadalcanal Tuesday this week, Mr Prendergast said everyone has to do something.

At his weekly media conference on Thursday, the Police Commissioner said everyone needs to do more to solve the issue of domestic violence despite having a legislation in place.

“And we all need to do more and this is why I am stressing that it’s not a matter of just having a legislation in place and being comfortable, we actually have to do more and we have to get the
message out and change people’s mindsets, but it’s a job for the Police and we’re actively doing that every day but we need everyone engaged. We need the churches engage, we need the women’s groups engage, we need the chief engage, we need all sorts of community groups engage, we need the youth groups engage because unless we all work together on this issue we’ll never solve it.”

Mr Prendergast adds people should live and grow up in a safe and secure environment rather than deterring their potential with domestic violence.

“What I am talking about is people being able to live in their homes safely, grow up in a safe and secure environment and reach their full potential and family violence or domestic violence is stopping people doing that, and we’ve got an extreme case here but this is happening everyday, can I tell you, this sort of violence, so it’s about all of us working together, not just relying on the Police to fix it or the Ministry of Women to fix it, but we have a real role, we’re not trying to work away from our responsibility but we need everyone to do more and if this is happening with your neighbour don’t let it happen, speak up, you know, if it’s happening in your community have the community come together and talk about it stop happening.”