Cook Islands - Pacific Prevention of Domestic Violence Programme

Cook Islands
we need to work with others and hopefully the Domestic Violence Unit will do this.
Those people are important to our cases. They help us to deal with victims.
Criminal justice sector, including the Ministry of Justice
I was unable to make appointments with some agencies within the criminal justice sector, for
example, the Crown Law Office. As far as I could tell, this indicated that CIPS did not have
strong links with these agencies.
A representative of the Probation Service within the Ministry of Justice said they have a very
good working relationship with CIPS, with some flow of information between the two
agencies. The Probation Service provides CIPS with information as required. CIPS is
generally good at providing information, although it sometimes fails to provide the Summary
of Facts and Victim Impact Statements. The Probation Service wanted to see the
reintroduction of a monthly meeting between the two organisations, which was discontinued
some time ago.
Government agencies
A representative of the Gender and Development Division (GADD) of the Ministry of
Internal Affairs said there was a good working relationship with CIPS and a unity between the
two organisations. At the same time, it was felt that CIPS could strengthen the stakeholder
network by keeping other partners informed about matters relating to domestic violence.
NGOs
Cook Islands NGOs established closer working relationships with CIPS as a result of
preparing the shadow CEDAW report. The NGOs saw working in tandem as more productive
than working in isolation. At the time of the interviews there was no formal system of
organisations dealing with domestic violence. Some would welcome a formal relationship
with written guidelines for partner agencies.
The most significant recent development in Police partner relations was the imminent signing
of a Memorandum of Understanding between CIPS and PTI. In addition to this agreement, the
counsellor at PTI was setting up a closer relationship with the Domestic Violence Unit, which
included reciprocal referrals and follow up of cases. PTI was willing to support Police work in
various ways, such as lobbying for CIPS and providing training on gender issues.
A representative of Te Pa Tau’nga, a mental health NGO, said they have a good relationship
with Police. She believed that, from a safety perspective, it would be good for Police and an
NGO to respond to domestic violence incidents jointly, although some NGO workers would
not wish to be involved. Another advantage would be that the presence of an NGO worker
might help in pacifying the situation: while the older generations still have respect for mana
and the Police, this is not the case among younger people and they need someone to talk with.
Discussion
At the systemic level, there were some tensions that could form barriers to closer links
between CIPS and other agencies. In the interests of effective inter-agency collaboration, it
will be important to overcome these obstacles.
Points raised about CIPS by other agencies included:
• failure to respond to callouts, particularly on the outer islands;
• inappropriate handling of incidents – for example, returning injured women to
situations in which they were beaten again, rather than taking them hospital, or giving
poor advice;
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