And Balderamos Garcia's ministry is also working on revising the National Gender Policy. The policy points out glaring issues in the system, especially as it relates to gender based violence, such as limited shelters and lack of resources for the DVU at the police department.
The Minister said that as they continue to work with their partners, progress will be made.
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs
"I think it will come, the improvement will come with collaboration. The policy really assists us in terms of the direction we want to go and because we have given such an important role to fighting against and combating gender based violence, then what we have to do is to work much more with partnerships so the policy will inform the actions that will be taken and thank you for raising the issue that the domestic violence unit at the police is understaffed. We will certainly be having discussions with the minister and the commissioner of police to see if we could provide more assistance there. I do know that there have been many good interventions even though in March we had some very sad and very tragic occurrences as we all know. We had two murder suicides and then we had other things that have happened, other incidents, a high level officer of the BDF being accused of severe domestic violence."
"The message we have to send is that there will be zero tolerance and yes we need more facilities of shelters for people seeking help."
