By Linny Folau

The Tonga Police makes two to three arrests a week for domestic violence, which is a tiny tip of the iceberg, while statistics revealed a drop in the rate of reporting the crime to the police, which causes concern, said Police Commissioner Grant O'Fee on April 15.

A guest speaker at a workshop on "Upskilling of Journalists and Advocates on Reporting Domestic Violence in Tonga," Commissioner O'Fee said that in January-February this year, 49 incidents were reported to police and 21 had been prosecuted.

He said victims of domestic violence were mainly aged 25-36 years and mostly females. "There were assaults on men but very few," he said.

Of the 49 incidents it included two stabbings. A majority common assaults included punching of victims but without the use of a weapon and involving mostly men beating-up the woman in either a husband-wife or a partnered relationship.

He said it was disturbing to find that the reporting of domestic violence to the police has dropped.

"Less reporting of the crime may sound good. But it is bad because when it's gone down people might think it is a good sign that less men are beating up their partners. But evidence internationally has proved that this is not the case as either less people are coming forward or the police are not processing the complaints as well as they should. The truth is somewhere in between," he said.

Commissioner O'Fee was concerned the low rate questions people's confidence in Tonga police, or perhaps women feared that their husbands might go to prison and they would loose their breadwinner. "Perhaps the woman tolerates being beaten up rather than reporting it knowing the consequences that her husband will go to prison," he said.

Bad attitudes

He admitted that his staffs' attitudes toward the crime was also not helping. 

He had talked to some NGO's who said some women who went to complain to the police were told to go away because they were a disgrace to their family and it was their fault for getting beaten up by talking to another man, or for not having dinner ready. "This my problem and I have told my staff this behaviour is wrong as we are here to lock up the person who did it, if there is evidence, and to stop it," he said.

He said he know some people are scared in the police since Kali Fungavaka was murdered as people have called him many times wanting to meet him to give information taht they were too scared to come forward with to the police station.

"We have realigned our Strategic Plan and the main thrust of it is to regain the confidence and trust of the Tongan people, which I believe has been lost, a lot due to Kali's death, among other in things, including domestic violence. We have got to change this attitude."

Victim comes first

He said another challenge he faced with his staff is that they do not treat the victims particularly well.

"We in Tonga Police do not have a culture of 'the victm comes first'.

"I have to get our staff to be more aware when we go to court there are other people involved in a case, but the most important person is the victim. Sadly, at the moment we don't have that mindset yet at the Tonga Police that the most important person in any investigation is the victim. and I apologize for that."

He said police staff has now undergone many training courses in which the care and importance of the victim has been stressed. But at the same time we have a lot of good young staff who are eager to help out and are genuinely carrying out their oaths to the public, he said.

World

The Commissioner said Tonga is not the only country  with the problem of domestic violence, "but we have got a long way to go to change the mindset," he said.

"In Tonga we have an advantage compared to other countries and that is, I have been told, that 95 percent of Tongans go to church on Sundays. That seems to me that maybe we could have one day where every sermon says 'This is wrong!'"

"Domestic violence to me is wrong, and we need to get that message out there. I don't care if you are the head of the family. I don't care if you are big and strong. I don't care what position that you hold in society, or who you are, to me it just simple, it is plain wrong," he said.

Some people say alcohol plays a big part in domestic violence that when the husband or male person is drunk causes a large part of it, but "that is a myth and I don't believe that is the case," he said.

"In Tonga statistics are that around 60 percent of the men arrested for domestic violence were affected by alcohol, which is the same statistics in New Zealand and Australia. I believe it is not about alcohol its about power and control. Domestic violence is no worse in Tonga than it is in New Zealand as we have one in three women in a relationship affected. It is not just a problem in Tonga it's a worldwide problem."

No Drop Policy

He said the Tonga Police's "No Drop Policy" in regards to domestic violence had been good but, perhaps, it was time to look at it and how we can adapt it further because maybe women were not coming forward because of a fear their husband might go to jail.

He said police will soon be advertising the position for a person to head the Police Domestic Violence Unit.

"I have had discussions with the judiciary to look at the possibility of having a wider range of sentencing options and not just going to jail. There are some other options such as the Salvation Army, who has a good alcohol program. But I am very careful by not sending a signal that we are being soft on domestic violence," he said.

He said the No Drop Policy will still be used but perhaps it can be adapted to include some discretion with police or the NGO concerned in regards to a particular case like the woman does not want her husband to go to jail but she wants the violence to stop, he said.

"At the end of the year we would like to see clear guidelines agreed with our partners on the way forward for domestic violence in Tonga. We do not have a clear path at the moment but we will talk to partner agencies on how it can be developed further," he said.

The workshop attended by local journalists and advocates will run until Friday 19 April. The Solicitor General 'Aminiasi Kefu will be another guest speaker on the proposed Family Protection Bill for Tonga.