The Rotary Club Bahamas recently hosted a symposium on domestic violence in the capital.  Many stakeholders including police presented at the event.

Assistant Superintendent of Police, Kendra Whyms told attendees that abuse comes in different forms.  “It’s not only physically abusing someone by slapping, punching, kicking.  It’s also verbal by what you say.  So persons in the home could be verbally abused where their mom or their dad is being called stupid, they’ll be calling other ill names to make them feel less than a person.  The child who is reporting the abuse will not be ridiculed.  The child say when they call the police, they say they feel as if they are going to get beaten or they’re gonna get punished by their mother cause they talked.”

Life Coach, Dr. Carlos Reid was also a panelist at the event.  He spoke about the importance of males expressing their emotions.   He said, “males, we’ve been taught from we were young that big boys ain’ suppose to cry.  So in a lot of cases we experience things but we don’t know to talk about it because we don’t want nobody think we soft or we is no lil sissy. But the idea is if we allow things to continue then person go on, they don’t just hurt you, they go on an they hurt other people.”

The purpose of the symposium was to educate young people on domestic violence.