The United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women has just confirmed a grant of $695,000 to Women United Together Marshall Islands for a three-year program to step up the response against domestic violence, said the group’s Director Daisy Alik-Momotaro on Friday.
The grant comes less than two months after the stabbing death in Majuro of a Marshall Islands woman, whose husband is facing trial for second-degree murder.
The women’s group is also working on plans to establish the first safe house for battered women in this western Pacific nation of 55,000, she said.
A survey in the mid-2000s conducted by Women United Together Marshall Islands showed that more than 60 percent of several hundred women interviewed reported being verbally or physically abused by men.
The UN grant will support anti-violence work focusing on “increasing public awareness about the high prevalence of domestic violence and the need to reduce and prevent it,” said Alik-Momotaro.
Few people in this country report domestic violence, making enforcement difficult. A 2007 study by the Marshall Islands government’s Economic
Policy, Planning and Statistic Office reported that half of the 312 women who said they were physically and sexually abused did not report or tell anyone about being abused by their husbands or boyfriends.
Alik-Momotaro said beefing up penalties for domestic violence and enforcing the laws is a priority of the national women’s group.
One problem facing women is that there are virtually no systems in place to support or provide services to victims of domestic violence. To tackle this problem, the women’s group will be launching trainings for “first responders” including police and hospital staff to sensitize them to the issues, and to help develop protocols and systems for responding.
