Family Violence Coordinators in the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) have been challenged to commit themselves to addressing the issue of family violence within the communities they serve throughout the country.
The challenge comes at the end of a two-week training workshop for RSIPF Family Violence Coordinators from Honiara and the provinces held at the Rove Police Headquarters in Honiara from 10 – 21 September 2018.
The FV Coordinators Workshop provided participants with a more holistic learning experience and as such, the workshop contained a health and wellbeing component, Operational Safety Training (OST) and JIMS (Justice Information Management System) Training.
Closing the Workshop on 21 September, Supervising Commissioner of Police, Gabriel Manelusi says, “I encourage you to commit yourself to the prevention of family violence and make your unique contribution to the province and communities you are serving. We want to see officers who return to their province and start improving services to our people.”
“I want to challenge you to ask yourselves some of these questions. What’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make?” Mr Manelusi asked the 25 participants who completed the Workshop.
He told the Family Violence Coordinators: “You have been given the opportunity to enhance your leadership skills and identify the gaps. I trust with the training, you will be able to go out and improve the process and system in place so it can improve the way we deal with victims of family violence.”
Supervising Commissioner of Police Mr Manelusi also thanked the Solomon Islands Police Development Program (SIPDP) for assisting to fund and co-ordinate the training workshop and the other stakeholders who contributed to the success of the program.
Speaking on behalf of the family violence coordinators, Inspector Lily Dagi thanked the SIPDP for coordinating the Workshop.
“I know my colleagues will agree with me that we have a learnt a great deal during the two weeks and we are committed to improve how RSIPF deals with the victims of family violence in the provinces we are serving,” says Inspector Dagi.
Since the introduction of the Family Protection Act (FPA) in 2014 there have only been 2,000 family violence (FV) cases reported to date. Of these only 61 FV cases have resulted in prosecutions under the FPA.