Results for domestic violence

Tonga’s landmark Family Protection Bill 2013 passed by the Legislative Assembly of Tonga on September 4, after three weeks of heavy debate, will help the police to deal with family violence that is increasing in Tonga. It now awaits the assent of the King and is expected to be enacted next year.

Tonga’s new Family Protection Bill 2013 will provide protection orders that will quickly and firmly stop a significant crime in Tonga - a crime that has killed four women and left others hospitalized due to severe beatings from either their partners or husbands. 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. By Linny Folau

A landmark Family Protection Bill is set to be introduced to Tonga's Parliament soon and is currently undergoing public consultations.

In Tonga there is violence between high school boys, young men in villages, between and within families and in public places. "And at the end of each case someone's loved one is injured or badly affected, sadly, the perpetrators of violence are mostly by us, the men," Lord Vaea said today as Tonga marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

A woman in her late 30's remains in police custody, charged with causing grievous bodily harm to her husband, and attempted suicide, following a domestic incident at Nukunuku on February 23.

Unfortunately, many people, especially women and children in Tonga, think that it is normal to be beaten up, but it is time to change this attitude, the Acting Co-ordinator of the Tonga National Centre for Women and Children, 'Eleni Mone said this week. Sunday, October 3, 2010

Changing Tonga's laws to better protect women against domestic violence is the essence of the first National Consultation on Advocacy Strategies for Advancing Legislative Change to Address Violence against Women which will be opened in Nuku'alofa on Monday May 17.

Perpetrators of women abuse are to be held accountable for their own actions. This is not a Tongan societal problem. In old Tonga, the brothers or uncles of the abused women would descend on women abusers and beat the crap out of them, and may have even killed them in the process. But in a modern "democratic" society, we provide professional help, and then prosecute them under the law of the country as a deterrence mechanism. Unfortunately, we may have to see some of the guilty murderers hung before Tongan abusive men get the message. -Sione A. Mokofisi