Editor,

Please accept my sincere apology here if I misplace my point of argument about this issue. Sad news and stories of domestic violence is becoming more common in Tonga these days. Worst comes to worst when domestic violence get out of control and result in murder. No one of any race or color has a right to take life out of a person no matter whatsoever the reason.

Now let's face the dark secret that has been hidden in the Tongan domestic life. This dark secret is you can abuse your children for a better future because they are yours and you have control over them. I think we have come to a time that we see that reality is falling far off from the above hypothesis.

Tonga Police provides some statistics about the problem. The Police commander is exactly right, it's only a tip of the iceberg. In other words the bigger portion is not shown and it's potential result could be as deadly as the known one.

I'm not writing this just to comment on the problem, this is a call for action. All violence of any kind is unacceptable. I think domestic violence and murder are manufactured domestically.

Stop beating children, your wife or husband, your students, your friends and your loved one. Speak to them in love and kindness. Share with them the things you have if they are in need of something.

Some people says this is a foreign style of child rearing which are not good for us. We know that kids are deported from overseas for criminal behaviour but at the same time we reap the benefits from remittances we receive from overseas. So to blame the palangi way of child rearing is senseless.

I watched a TV interview of one of Vava'u MPs, 'Etuate Lavulavu in NZ in which he raised the excessive abuse of school children. Mr Mokofisi of Salt Lake City look at the problem from the same perspective except he accuses the Police Commander of lying. I am sure there are a lot of Tongan people out there who see the same as I see but too busy to write or talk to public. Whatever the perspective they look from or talk about in the faikava or in the newspaper, they may not emphasized enough and consistently that domestic violence in Tonga is a crime. Accumulation of domestic violence ways in a person's mind may increase his tendency to commit more violence and possibly murder let alone the psychological demise.

I may not have much statistics here to support my points but if there are some I hope it's contra to my claims. Domestic violence should have been abolished and loaded on the ship that Suteni and Lemea used in their discovery of Tonga 6 centuries ago. Whosoever still practice the domestic violence should be put back in time. It has no place in the Tongan society of 2009.

Siosaia Mila

skmendevor [at] hotmail [dot] com