Criminologist Dr Randy Seepersad has stated what the State of Emergency debate consistently avoids: gang-related murders account for approximately 40% of total homicides in Trinidad and Tobago. The remaining 60% - domestic violence killings, interpersonal disputes, robbery-related deaths, and other forms of violence - fall outside the scope of emergency powers designed to target organised criminal networks. The country has now spent roughly ten of the last fourteen months under some form of emergency declaration. None of those months were designed to address the violence happening inside Trinbagonian homes.
The SoE gives police the authority to arrest on suspicion, search without warrants, and detain without bail. These are tools for pursuing known gang figures, seizing weapons in identified hotspots, and disrupting organised criminal operations. They are not designed for - and cannot address - a man who murders his partner in their home. They cannot address a woman who calls the police and watches as nothing happens. They cannot address a system that recorded 1,227 cases of physical domestic violence in eight months and charged five people.
What the Numbers Actually Say
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights published a report in October 2024 titled "Trinidad and Tobago Must Adopt Urgent Measures to Prevent Gender-Based Violence Against Women." The IACHR cited UN Women data showing that 44% of women who have ever been in a relationship in Trinidad and Tobago have suffered violence - physical, sexual, emotional, or economic. That figure is significantly above the global average of roughly one in three women.
Between January and August 2024, police received at least 1,227 reports of domestic violence in the form of physical assault and 117 reports of sexual abuse. Five people were charged. That is a charge rate of 0.4%. In the same period, at least 28 domestic violence-related murders were recorded. In October 2024 alone, the IACHR received reports of at least four women killed by partners or ex-partners who had histories of domestic and intimate partner violence.
These numbers sit within a longer trajectory. In 2021, police received 1,336 reports of domestic violence. In 2022, that figure rose to 1,690. In 2023, it nearly doubled to 2,646. The reporting trend line is moving in one direction, and the system's capacity to respond has not followed it.
Further back, between 2005 and 2015, nearly 300 women were killed due to domestic abuse. In 2017, of 52 women murdered, 43 deaths were attributed to domestic violence. This is not a new crisis. It is a chronic one, and it is accelerating.
The IACHR urged the State to ensure that any victim or potential victim of gender-based violence has access to timely and effective protection. Eighteen months later, the urgent measures have not materialised. What materialised instead were more States of Emergency focused on gang activity.
The Shelter That Runs on Donations
To understand the gap between policy language and lived reality, consider the state of shelter capacity in Trinidad and Tobago. The Shelter, one of the few dedicated domestic violence safe houses in the country, requires approximately TT$1.2 million annually to operate at full capacity. The government provides $90,000 of that - toward salaries only. The remaining 95% of the organisation's funding comes from donations and fundraising events.
The Shelter reopened in mid-2021 with expanded capacity to house 21 residents, along with improved counselling facilities and a learning centre. Twenty-one beds for a country where 2,646 cases of physical domestic violence were reported in a single year.
It is not the only shelter to have struggled. Madinah House, another domestic violence safe house, closed permanently in 2019 after government grants ceased in 2014 and private donations could not sustain operations. When a shelter closes, the women who would have gone there do not disappear. They stay in the homes where the violence occurs.
The arithmetic is straightforward. A country of 1.4 million people, with one of the highest intimate partner violence rates in the hemisphere, is running its domestic violence shelter system on donated money and volunteer goodwill. The government's contribution to the primary safe house amounts to less than what a single mid-level state enterprise executive might spend on a retreat in Tobago.
The Law That Exists on Paper
The Domestic Violence Act was amended in 2020 to strengthen the legal framework. The amendments empowered police to investigate reports of domestic violence and arrest perpetrators without requiring input from the victim - a significant change intended to address the reality that many victims are unable or unwilling to initiate proceedings against their abusers due to economic dependence, fear of retaliation, or social pressure.
The 2020 amendment also required the Commissioner of Police to establish and maintain a National Domestic Violence Register, with officers responding to domestic violence reports mandated to update the register by entering all orders and reports. A pilot project for a Central Registry on Domestic Violence was completed and its final report submitted in 2011. The pilot was considered a success. The formal registry has never been fully implemented.
This is a pattern Trinbagonians will recognise from other sectors: legislation passes, implementation stalls, nobody tracks the gap, and the public debate moves on. The Domestic Violence Amendment Act exists. The register it requires does not. The emergency protection orders it enables are only as effective as the enforcement apparatus behind them, and that apparatus is processing charges in 0.4% of reported cases.
The COVID Precedent and the SoE Question
There is direct evidence from Trinidad and Tobago - not speculation from other jurisdictions - about what happens when people are confined to their homes. During the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, the country recorded what a United Nations Women representative described as one of the highest percentage increases in domestic violence during the pandemic: 149%.
Reports of domestic abuse from women increased from 695 in 2019 to 1,865 in 2020 - a more than twofold increase. Female intimate partner deaths rose by 24% in 2020. Assault by beating went up 62%. Calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline surged by 119% between January and October 2020.
A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Family Violence found that the enforcement of social distancing measures placed households under severe pressure, and for those already in fear of violence, shelter-in-place orders meant no reprieve in an escape to work or school. Among the sampled population, the study documented a 13% increase in domestic violence perpetration and a 16% increase in victimisation.
The SoE does not impose a formal curfew. But it creates a similar atmospheric effect - reduced movement, restricted nightlife, heightened police presence in public spaces, and a general contraction of the public sphere. Whether the same dynamic that drove domestic violence rates upward during lockdowns applies to the current emergency period is a research question that nobody in government appears to be investigating. The data from 2020 suggests it should be.
The Spotlight That Faded
Trinidad and Tobago was a recipient country under the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, a global programme to eliminate violence against women and girls. The initiative launched in the communities of Tunapuna, Mayaro, and Tobago in May 2020, and its programming ran through 2023. During that period, over 500 judicial actors were trained on gender protocol, more than 400 police officers received training in gender-responsive policing, and the country's first official framework for healthcare workers treating survivors of gender-based violence was developed. A National Strategic Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Sexual Violence, covering 2023 to 2027, was produced.
In March 2025, Trinidad and Tobago became the first Caribbean nation to launch a National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security, hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister in partnership with UN Women and the Government of Canada.
These are genuine accomplishments. The question is what happens when the international funding cycle ends and the trained officers return to a system that charges 0.4% of reported cases. The National Strategic Action Plan exists. Whether it is being funded, staffed, and implemented at the pace the crisis demands is not clear from public reporting. Action plans without budget lines are statements of aspiration, not policy.
The Framing Problem
The national conversation about violence in Trinidad and Tobago is dominated by the SoE debate. Should emergency powers be extended? Are they working? What are the crime statistics? This framing captures 40% of the problem and treats it as though it represents the whole. The other 60% - domestic violence, interpersonal disputes, violence behind closed doors - receives a fraction of the political attention, a fraction of the budget, and a fraction of the media coverage.
When politicians debate the SoE in Parliament, they are debating gang-related homicides. They are not debating the 2,646 domestic violence reports that came in during 2023, or the 28 domestic violence murders in the first eight months of 2024, or a shelter system that operates on charitable donations. Domestic violence occurs in private spaces, committed by people who are not gang members, against victims who are economically or socially dependent on their attacker. The barriers to prosecution are not police powers - they are economic dependence, social stigma, inadequate shelter capacity, and a court system that leaves victims unprotected.
A woman whose partner beats her does not benefit from police being able to search without a warrant. She benefits from a shelter she can reach, legal aid she can afford, a domestic violence register that actually functions, and a court that processes her protection order before her partner comes home.
Five charges out of 1,227 reported cases. A shelter system funded at 7.5% of its operating cost by the state. A domestic violence register mandated by law and still not operational. A 149% increase in domestic violence during the last period of enforced confinement. These are the numbers that no State of Emergency, however long it lasts, will change.
Sources
- IACHR: "Trinidad and Tobago Must Adopt Urgent Measures to Prevent Gender-Based Violence Against Women" (October 2024)
- UN Women: Violence against women data for Trinidad and Tobago
- UN Women Caribbean: Gender-Based Violence in Trinidad and Tobago (2018)
- Caribbean Women Count: VAWG Data Hub
- Dr Randy Seepersad: Analysis on SoE limitations and homicide categories
- Trinidad Express: "A deep, deep crisis of civilisation"
- TT Crime: Domestic Violence Statistics for Trinidad and Tobago
- Baker McKenzie: Legal provisions - Domestic Violence in Trinidad and Tobago
- The Shelter Trinidad: About Us - Operating costs and government funding
- Research Outreach: "Madinah House: More than just a shelter" (closure in 2019)
- Journal of Family Violence: "The Trinidad and Tobago Covid-19 Domestic Violence Victimization and Perpetration Study" (2022)
- Trinidad Guardian: "Officials say COVID-19 made domestic violence worse in T&T"
- Trinidad Guardian: "Minister: Increase in domestic violence since COVID"
- Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network: "Domestic Violence Response During Covid"
- Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago: The Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act, 2020
- Legal Aid and Advisory Authority: "Domestic Violence: What You Need to Know"
- The Commonwealth i-Library: "Central Registry on Domestic Violence, Trinidad and Tobago" (pilot report)
- UN Women / EU Spotlight Initiative: National Strategic Action Plan for Trinidad and Tobago (2024)
- UNDP: Spotlight Initiative Trinidad and Tobago - Programme Report 2020-2023
- UN Women: Trinidad and Tobago becomes first Caribbean nation to launch WPS National Action Plan (March 2025)
- Al Jazeera: "Trinidad and Tobago extends state of emergency for another three months" (March 14, 2026)
- Newsday: "Dealing with the domestic violence dilemma" (September 2024)
- ISA Sociology: "Silence around Intimate Partner Violence in Trinidad and Tobago"
- Seepersad and Han: "Intimate Partner Violence and Suicidality: Applicability of General Strain Theory to Women in Trinidad and Tobago" (2025)