Following Friday's tragic stabbing of a young woman, the issue of violence against women is a tangle of emotions, but it is also a complex of legal and community issues, faced every day by organisations such as the Women's Resource Centre, whose executive director, Penny Dill, spoke to the Mid-Ocean News this week.

She stressed that public discussion of the weekend's tragedy is constrained by the law, as a man was on Tuesday charged with the killing, and direct comments on the case could affect the trial.

A COMPLEX of agencies on the island work together over violence against women, but they could work together better to protect women, Penny Dill declared. "Resources are there, but they are not being utilised the way they should."

Set up in 1987 as the Rape Crisis Centre, in response to a sexual assault case, the organisation's role expanded. "We found we were not just dealing with women who had issues of sexual assault, we also were dealing with women who had issues of physical abuse." It became the Women's Resource Centre in 1992.

Thanks to a Government grant and private fund-raising, there is a paid staff of two full-time and five part-time staff, including counsellors and a paralegal. The centre also operates a volunteer hot-line from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., and the Hamilton office is open during the day for counselling and legal advice, in person or by telephone.

"We are an organisation that lobbies for changes in legislation to protect victims," said Mrs. Dill. "Since I've been involved, we've been involved with the Task Force on Child Abuse, resulting in the Children's Act, the Task Force on Domestic Violence, the new Domestic Violence Legislation and the Amendment to that."

Importantly, the domestic violence legislation extended legal protection to people who are co-habiting, she explained: "Parents, children, girlfriend, boyfriend . . . Before, you had to be married or you couldn't get an order."

The centre has pushed successfully for a separate sexual assault treatment area at the hospital, and is also pushing for one-way mirrors at identity parades, to separate witnesses from possible offenders.

"The mirror not only affects sexual assault cases," she noted. "The ID parade process affects personal cases, or if there are no other witnesses."

And she charged that lack of police manpower had led to situations where a protection order case went to court, only for the court to realise that the incidents on which the protection request was based had not yet been entered in the computer.

Although many of the centre's clients came as referrals from Government departments or the police, she cautioned: "You cannot really appear before a judge for a protection order unless there is a police record of abuse."

This "paper trail" was vital in invoking legal protection. However, protection orders were not always a solution, Mrs. Dill warned.

"Sometimes, the offender has been to jail and will turn round and say to the victim, 'I have nothing to lose.' And they don't.

"But the threat that the offender will be arrested and jailed for infringing the order is enough to deter the majority of people."

She said the legal system was very expensive, and her clients also needed more out of the court system. "It takes time to go to court. It's difficult getting time before the magistrate, although these matters really should take precedence because time is sometimes a matter of life and death."

And she said that individual magistrates made a difference.

"A lot of judges don't like dealing with domestic violence cases. Some judges have their own prejudices. Some comments which have come out recently from judges have not been helpful. Whether they feel that way or not, as a professional and in that position, they are supposed to be neutral. If a woman comes in for protection, it doesn't help when the magistrate turns around to the male counterpart and says, 'I can understand why you got angry.'

"But there are some good judges and some acting magistrates who have come in," she stressed.

Co-operation between helping agencies was vital, because violence was a complex phenomenon involving many issues at once.

In relating statistics, she offered an example: "The majority of our clients rent. That is one of the root causes of domestic violence; there can be a strain on the relationship due to finances.

"We get people coming up here with issues of housing, landlord-tenant issues. We'll refer the matter to the Housing Corporation or a lawyer or legal aid, if they can qualify.

"There's not a lot we can do in respect of a non-Bermudian woman who's married to a Bermudian, because that's an Immigration issue. We can advise if they're married. We can advise her to go to Immigration and find out what her rights are about any children."

AND it is not only Government departments involved with curbing violence and dealing with its after-effects; the Family Resource Network, a group of agencies which has gathered together also fills different needs from the Women's Resource Centre.

"The Physical Abuse Centre runs the batterers programme," said Mrs. Dill. "We don't have any input, but we know how it operates and we work closely with the Physical Abuse Centre. We want to make sure there are no loopholes."

The Physical Abuse Centre also runs a "safe house".

In cases involving substance abuse, the Women's Resource Centre relied on Fair Havens Christian Care Association, said Mrs. Dill.

"We've tried to extend ourselves and it doesn't work," she said. "At the end of the day, some of the initiatives we want to put into play are initiatives we want other people to put into place. This is what we've seen. This is what we feel can be done."

Will raising the issue of violence against women - far from encouraging people and agencies to work together - cause a backlash against men and polarise society into men versus women?

Choosing her words carefully, Mrs. Dill replied: "Our role as an organisation is, of course, to protect women, to make sure of their rights and to make sure we protect them.

"We do have a lot of support from the community - that's men as well as women.

"I think both of our agencies (the Women's Resource Centre and the Fathers' Resource Centre) have to find out what is the root cause of domestic violence. Because it is a problem. We can work together so there won't be cases of polarisation."

This included working against violence and abuse wherever it occurred, she stressed. "We are an organisation which not only deals with counselling and the legal effects of domestic and sexual violence; we also deal with the parents of children who have been placed in foster care. And a lot of those parents have been abused themselves.

"We do get women who come through our door and, when they start talking, we realise they are just as physical. I'm talking about people who are physically violent and not those who are defending themselves. Very few, but when we do get that, we normally say to them, 'Look, we do have concerns that your may be an abuser,' and suggest counselling.

"When we have women coming through our door in crisis, our main response is to to help them."

BESIDES working with Government departments, other charitable organisations and individuals affected by violence, the Women's Resource Centre also orients on the response of individuals and of the community.

"I agree that when you knew who your neighbour was, it was helpful. Nowadays, people come home, they close their door. As Bermuda has grown, people want their privacy. There's less space to go around.

"At one time, when there were a lot of attacks on women, we thought pepper spray was the answer - it's not legal in Bermuda.

"But looking at it from a wider perspective, the best action is probably education."

This would be better than taskforces, as task force results had previously been ignored, she said, and education would affect the mindsets which reinforced violence against women.

"I try not to be biased, but women sometimes are their own worst enemies. They're the first ones to criticise a woman because of what she wore (in a sexual assault case). And it shouldn't be like that.

"There's a lot of things that we can't do that the judicial system can do, that the police can do, that the community can do, that's not being done."

q Women's Resource Centre, 58 Reid Street, Hamilton. Telephone: 295-3882.