As con­sul­ta­tions con­tin­ue on Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, an ad­vo­cate against gen­der-based vi­o­lence is call­ing on the State to en­sure safe­guards are in place to re­duce the po­ten­tial for harm, es­pe­cial­ly in do­mes­tic set­tings.

Gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Coali­tion Against Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (CADV), Sab­ri­na Mowlah-Baksh, warned that the in­tro­duc­tion of leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als to use dead­ly force in self-de­fence could have dan­ger­ous im­pli­ca­tions if not care­ful­ly reg­u­lat­ed, par­tic­u­lar­ly in house­holds where there is a his­to­ry or risk of abuse.

Her com­ments fol­low the mur­der of a Cou­va woman, who was re­port­ed­ly shot and killed by a male rel­a­tive.