BY MIKE TUA
FAMILY Support Centre is a locally-based organization helping victims of domestic violence in the country.
Solomon Women’s Newspaper Mike Tua interviews the Manager of the Centre, Lynffer Wini Maltungtung on her continuing leading role to recognize and seek out issues of domestic violence and victimization in the Solomon Islands.
“The most enjoyable part of my job in the Centre is to be able to help our clients make their own rightful decisions and to help them able to handle and overcome their situations,” she told Solomon Women.
Lynffer, a 39-year-old from Malaita province is a lawyer by profession. From 1999 to 2001, she undertook four years of legal studies [Bachelor of Law Program] at the University of South Pacific in Fiji and Vanuatu.
Later in 2012, she completed her Post-grad Diploma in legal practice after six months of study in Laucala, Fiji.
“Well, I am a woman and during my time at university, I know that majority of women in the country are not legally represented, women’s voices are not heard, so when I was in form six I managed to look through several careers that I would like to pursue as part of my studies.
“And as I can recall there were not many women lawyers at that time so I say to myself, this is where I can do something and to help women like myself to get their voices heard and well represented in courts.
“My interest to help victims of violence started when I completed my studies in family law in Vanuatu. After my studies, I met my Ni-Vanuatu husband and we got married there, it was the ethnic crisis in our country, so I remained there and took up my first job in the Women’s Crisis Centre in Vanuatu.
“So at that time I built my passion from there and it continued to where I am now to help victims of domestic violence,” she recalled.
When she returned to the country, she worked as a legal officer for the Family Support Centre for two years (2012-2014). She only took up the leadership role as Centre manager in April of last year when they advertised the vacancy for a Centre Managerial position.
“I value my experience here very much. In terms of my profession, it has helped me to understand more about human rights issues and family violence issues.
“I am always happy that most of the time my colleagues questioned and rely on me to share my experience on relevant issues associated with the work of the Centre.
“From my experience here, it has given me more confidence to help others, and apart from that it has helped us to be experts in such areas and other organizations rely on us to run workshops or awareness on such issues.”
Family Support Centre is situated at Rove, Tandai High Way, and provides the following services: Free Confidential counseling, Legal advice for both men and women, Referrals to SAFENET and other specialist service providers, Awareness raising and Advocacy, Information and Research, and 24 Hours Helpline – Phone 20619.
The Centre Manager said the reason she decided to pursue her career in that direction is that she wanted to help victims of domestic violence.
“As I said my interest started building up when I get my first job in Vanuatu, therefore, I started thinking that one day I will start helping the victims of violence and I know that it is a very sensitive issue and I have to have skills, knowledge, and passion to help people who faced violence.
“And when I say violence, the majority of it is women but we don’t want to discriminate against men, but we also want to acknowledge that men too face violence, therefore, we in the Centre can help anyone that comes in here. Although people might think that it is a woman-centered one but if men come we will not turn them away and we still can help and represent them as well.
“The only thing we want to achieve here is that we want to make sure violence must end or we must overcome it to allow the victims to move on with their lives.”
As a Centre Manager, Lynffer’s role is to manage the day-to-day running of the Centre and to make sure their services are not disrupted but to ensure it is run smoothly.
“For instance, it is very important for me to make rightful management decisions over the issues that deal with on the daily basis.
“Being a Manager, I have learned a lot from my job, and I am also very thankful that we have an active board that supports me along the way, and being able to establish a good connection and relationship with the board can enable me to make good decisions in hard times because every decision I make has to be very crucial, therefore, I have to make wise decisions to move forward this Centre.
Although she is a lawyer by profession and Lynffer has no formal experience in legal court practices; which means she has not been to court or has any experience in court.
“I have tried to get admitted but since I have spent most of my time and experience in the Centre, I have no chance to do that although I want to represent women in court,” she said.
She said the Centre also has its specific challenges especially in ensuring services are delivered effectively.
“One of our major challenges is when we run out of funds and how to get the availability of funds and also when there is a cut to the budget because our services depend a lot on the availability of funds if there is a cut it will heavily affect us.
“We also depend on donors and when donors pull out, we have to look for other alternatives to avoid further major problems,” she added.
She says although I am passionate about my job, I also have to cope with a few stresses at my workplace.
“My stressful situation is when you are a one-person and you are needed everywhere, therefore, such circumstances urgently need good time management to set my priorities right.
“Most of the request that needed my attention is also very important therefore I have to make my priorities straight to attend to them.
She said one of her professional successes with the Centre was their organization’s involvement in the consultation works leading up to the formation of the Family Protect Act 2014.
“I guess one of my professional successes was to be able to work actively with the Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Family Affairs in the passing of the Family Protection Act.
“We have been very active in that, along with other organizations because it is something that we know can help our clients of the Centre, so we made our big effort on that and spend more time on it, so with the passing of that Act, we feel very happy about it because we also took an active role in it.”
She said one of her inspirational figures in her career would be the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women, Children, Youths and Family Affairs, Ethel Sigamanu.
“I see her as an expert in women’s rights issues and I am not biased here but I see that she has a lot of passion for women and children. And a lot those issues, she is well versed with that and I like the way she handles things and especially in her public speaking, therefore, I admire her and she is a role model for me,” she said.
She said domestic violence is a very serious problem and is a high prevalence in the country.
“As we all know, in 2009 statistics revealed that two in every three women faces violence.
“In the Centre, we received almost 300 plus cases each year and the highest is domestic violence because when I was a legal officer at that time, we received 100 plus cases each time and half of it would be domestic violence and other cases would be for divorce and child welfare support or maintenance.
“I see this as a serious problem and we need to cut it down. And I am happy that our government has recognized the issues of domestic violence and says they must ensure the rate of domestic violence is reduced in our country.
“Now that we have the Family Protection Act now going towards its commencement, I am sure in many years to come we might not see an automatic stop to it but we will see the reduction of domestic violence here.”
