Tuesday, April 15, 2025
By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS
Tribune Staff Reporter
lmunnings@tribunemedia.net
THE Royal Bahamas Police Force has officially opened the country’s first standalone Domestic Violence Unit — a 24/7 facility designed to provide immediate, coordinated, and compassionate support for survivors of abuse.
The launch has been described as a major step forward in addressing domestic violence in The Bahamas, where advocates say too many victims continue to suffer in silence.
The new unit offers various services, including investigations, counselling, risk assessments, temporary housing for high-risk cases, medical and welfare referrals, and real-time data tracking. Officers assigned to the facility have received training in trauma-informed care and will work with shelters and other support services to ensure survivors are not left to navigate the system alone.
Police Commissioner Shanta Knowles clarified that the facility is not a shelter but a short-term response centre for those in immediate danger. She said those in need of long-term accommodation would be referred to appropriate shelters.
Commissioner Knowles also drew attention to an increase in reported domestic violence incidents in 2024, noting that cases of assault causing harm and threats of death had risen sharply. She said while the statistics are troubling on their own, they don’t account for victims who are too afraid or unable to come forward.
She credited former Commissioner Clayton Fernander with initiating the project in July 2022 through the formation of a specialised Domestic Violence Task Force.
National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said the facility’s creation could lead to a short-term rise in reports as victims gain confidence in the support available. He pointed to research showing high rates of violence against women in The Bahamas, referencing an IDB survey that found nearly a quarter of Bahamian women had experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. He also highlighted the prevalence of emotional, psychological, and economic abuse, calling such levels of harm unacceptable.
He added that many victims remain silent because their abusers are often the primary earners in the home, a reality that must be addressed alongside enforcement efforts.
Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said domestic violence is one of those issues that doesn’t require statistics to prove its seriousness — people feel its impact in their homes and communities every day. He said the unit was created for those silently enduring abuse and for those unsure whether to intervene when they hear signs of violence.
He assured survivors that they were not alone and that help was available through the newly opened unit and the wider support network working alongside it.
The media were asked not to report the facility’s location due to safety concerns, though invited guests were permitted to tour the building.
While the cost of renovations was not disclosed, Commissioner Knowles thanked community partners whose donations made the facility possible.
Comments
bogart says...
Congratulations! Congratulations! Help for the abused women. Publish the phone numbers and have vehicles to quickly rescue victims to the high secured sanctuary.
Posted 15 April 2025, 12:12 p.m. Suggest removal
carltonr61 says...
This is a home for a few spoilt posh poodles among many deserved husbands and wives faced with psychotic partners. Very few marriages reaches a 39 years of majority. But fir nany psychotic reasons wives scream a clarion call of mental abuse with husbands. Wives, driven by the 95% single females lifestyle in The Bahamas are fish hooked to death as The Bahamas has zero zero wives to account for Christian marriage until death do us part vows. Christianity is scorned at and no longer enforced by the church. Instead top of the hill evangelicals propose the root of all evil, money, to home family makers Sacrament of marriage ti grands husbands and God.
Wives, their bodies scared from ills of surgeries their husbands endured sit as easy prey for powerful politicians and abusers who seek these Sacred vulnerable.
A husband maintains a family for nearly 50 years all by himself then when the majored wife gets a job her money does not go to her household as her husband did button this newly created attitude. Husbands should beware young pastors and wives whose very young children contemplate giving advice go narrates and relationships their senior. And husbands must realize God's Will Be Done as wives take on a new attitude of Satan around 40 years of marriage and The Smith Devil wins but God never losses. These snake forked wives with the left tongue that fits the right tongue silently withholds the truth and the tongue's shaft manipulates abd controls 100% truth and God's power according to monied professionals women's groups who prostitutes to politicians and not the Cross.
Posted 16 April 2025, 11:03 p.m. Suggest removal
carltonr61 says...
A wife as if The Only One and True God is never made to be accountable as if God. But husbands and men bear 100% wrong 100% of the times. This woman muddy myopic world needs Biblickeadershop in the face of week spine prone mem religious leaders who have not lived the life of their children reaching manhood but date blaze a trail based on charismatic lights with sound but has not proven fatherly manhood in the trenches of survival pressures. They bow to their wives and every female who manipulate them then full the halls with pathological pathological husband emotional abusers. With these monied female family haters who never mommy their kids but worship money and are esteemed not as their role as homemakers but bank book makers destroyers of the sacrifice and Sacrament of marriage. Einamjood is all about money says all whors who claim false abuse and do not judge their lives according to the Bible order of God. Stop these women who carry God's power of unaccountability for mostly what they do not do but men must always be accountable only. Men are 100% the victims while government hide these psychological Delilahs. Why do wives ckaim that 100% of husbands arw suddenly criminal wife rapists and abusers if every ilk under God after 40 years of marriage and The system says yes we finally caught the criminals. But non married non family men are never criminals and non married 5 times multi daddy female mothers never suffer and claim abuse to government. Our non married daddies have 35 children with many women and no legal or emotiinal abuse headaches while a married man with one woman called a Holy Sacramental wife ends up with legal criminal emofiinsl abuse allegations against her husband at the 40 years of relationship? Government and the Clergy just needs to end marriage after the kids are out of monetary obligations upon husbands as that is when wives start being the monster woman from hell.
Posted 17 April 2025, 12:35 a.m. Suggest removal
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