Editor,

I am ashamed to be a Tongan with the latest news of 540 domestic violence cases, and six murdered deaths reported in less than two years (Four deaths 03 June, 2009 [2]), a clear manifestation of how sick many Tongan men are in the abuse of Tongan women.

Commander of the Tonga Police Chris Kelley is wrong: this is not the tip of the iceberg; this is the iceberg come crashing down on us. Six murder cases in nine months is an epidemic.

This sickness problem is not unique to Tongan society. The evolution of modern societies needed changes in how men view their women counterparts: are women their properties for sexual pleasuring and abuse, or are women their equal partners to be respected and praised as the mother of their children?

Why have not People's Representatives in Parliament enacted laws to protect women from abusive men? The alarming rates of domestic abuse cases filed should have given them the reasons to act promptly, if they are really the representatives of the people. In their failure, I can only conclude that PRs are also women abusers who condone this sick behavior among Tongan men.

I witnessed this abuse as a child growing up in the Tongan village, and I hated it. American societies went through similar evolutionary changes in the treatment of women with all immigrant cultures brought from immigrants' original homelands.

The stress of domestic financial problems in the home can be overwhelming. Women finding new freedom to express themselves in the modern society can drive men who considered women their personal properties jealous, and men are always resorting to abuse.

Psychologists offer domestic counseling to families with relationships problems, but abusive men usually refused the treatment as "demeaning" to their machismo (male chauvinism) pride.

Let's be honest: these women abusers are very sick puppies. They need professional treatments, and Police must subject them to counseling, and even deny their bail and keep them in jail until their day in court.

Sione Akemeihakau Mokofisi

samokofisi [at] hotmail [dot] com