Family and sexual violence unit lacks proper structure: Director

By LULU MAGINDE
DIRECTOR of the Family and Sexual Violence Unit (FSVU) Supt Deliah Sandeka says the unit lacks proper structure to make reports and provide support for victims.
Deliah told The National that at present, the unit was grossly understaffed and had yet to have positions approved by the Department of Community Development with the majority of staff at the nine units around Port Moresby comprised of volunteers.
In addressing the current structural problems currently faced by the units across the city, she listed shortage of manpower, lack of online monitoring case file system and lack of resources as her biggest struggles.
The current Commissioner (David Manning) was trying to give priority to the unit to be recognised as a directorate with structured positions but with the General Election 2022 taking centre stage at the moment, it didn’t look like that would be a reality until next year.
Deliah noted that on a daily basis, the Boroko unit where she is stationed, received 15-20 victims a day to make complaints and with a staff of four, they barely had enough time to register and process everyone with most victims being repeated visitors.
“Most of the women who come often make several complaints and even do return trips to the unit so for example, they’ll come on a Wednesday or Thursday to file a complaint and then they’ll turn up again over the weekend because of repeated abuse by their partners,” she said.
There were on average, 140 victims visiting a unit a week, multiply that figure by the nine units in Port Moresby which gave a total of 1,260 women a week who went to the units to lay their complaints.
Deliah stated that her next priority would be to integrate an online filing case system for all units in coordination with the courts so that accessing files and paperwork could become much lighter for her and all units.