Transcript
SUSANA FALETAU: This is the first time that government will be offering legal aid in advising victims of domestic violence and we will give advice on how to proceed with action against the perpetrators. We will also include within that advice, if the case goes further and the women or the family need further protection, we will help them you know to move on in life. We will be providing the legal services to help them move on. For example if it does come to custodial legal action after these court cases then we will provide those legal services as well for those survivors.
JENNY MEYER: The new centre, will it be in an existing building or is it in a totally new buidling that's being built for this purpose?
SF: On no, it's in an existing building. It's actually a building which is adjacent to one of our Majestrate's Courts right in the centre of Nuku'alofa. We also see it as being able to provide a separate place for the survivors to wait before they go into court so that they don't have to see the perpetrator.
JM: So is it aimed at women who are already involved in a legal process or is it aimed at women who have got particular issues, like they might have been beaten up the night before and they don't know what to do? Who are the target women we're talking about here who might be needing advice?
SF: Ok Jenny, we're targeting all domestic violence victims. Children, they can come to us directly. Women, women who have just been abused say the night before or whatever and also those who have pending cases. Because we only have one organisation at the moment in Tonga that has a dedicated lawyer who's been handling these cases for that specific centre. But I heard recently that that lawyer is no longer with them. So I see that this is an appropriate time that we are coming into this particular area.
JM: Like you say, it's difficult, you know that there's a problem but not many women come forward, what do you think can be done to try and ease that path for women and encourage them to seek out support, given that they're in an obviously very challenging and threatening situation, they don't want to make the situation worse, how can you reach out to them more do you think?
SF: Well I think we need to run more public awareness programmes and that's a very,very important area that civil society have covered in Tonga. It is a huge problem, it does need education of the whole of the public. Because one of the reasons that we know that the problem is there but people aren't coming forward is that I feel that there's this attitude of shame. You know too often we put up this mask of the strong Christian country that we are and so naturally we don't want them to see that this kind of domestic violence and abuse is occurring in the family homes. That mask has to come off if we are going to fix the problem.
