EHP officers complete gender violence course

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Wednesday 27th March, 2013

by ZACHERY PER
SEVENTEEN police officers in Goroka, Eastern Highlands, graduated with certificates in handling gender violence cases.
Training facilitator Sharon Samson said the participants would now be able to handle such cases with “conscience and care” as directed by Police Commissioner Tom Kulunga.
She said the course unlocked stubbornness and impatience.
“We are more satisfied that the workshop really helped the officers to treat domestic and gender-based violence with diligent care,” she said.
Samson said participants were drawn from various sections of the police units and outstations.
She thanked partners Save the Children Fund, community development division, Eastern Highlands family voice and AusAID through the provincial law and justice sector for their support.
First Const Rex Dala commended the initiative by the family violence unit and AusAID through representative Don Harold and the Eastern Highlands law and justice sector to train the officers.
He said they had a need to break the barriers down to comfortably handle gender violence cases.
“I thank you for the initiative and call for more of similar courses to be facilitated in future,” Dala said.
CID officer-in-charge John Daviaga challenged officers to implement the new skills and knowledge as they wanted to see changes in the approaches.
Eastern Highlands provincial police commander Supt John Kale thanked the facilitators, saying similar training should be conducted at regional level.
“This training will assist the family sexual violence unit, we have two officers and a lot of cases were referred to them,” Kale said.
“These 17 participants will help relieve the two officers.”