Tag Archives: isolated

Sitting ducks: UK charity sees surge in calls from stalking victims

By Emma Batha

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – British charities for victims of stalking have reported a surge in calls during the coronavirus lockdown, with women isolated at home saying they feel like “sitting ducks”.

Paladin, a national anti-stalking service, said on Monday that requests for help jumped 40% since the lockdown was imposed on March 23.

Campaigners said police and the judiciary did not take “the invidious crime” seriously enough even though research showed stalking was a factor in more than 90% of domestic homicides.

“Stalking is premeditated and is extremely dangerous behaviour,” said Rachel Horman, chairwoman of Paladin.

She said most victims were reporting being stalked via social media, messaging apps and email, but physical stalking was still happening despite the lockdown.

Some women had even found their stalkers waiting for them when they dropped off shopping for relatives.

“Their stalker is watching the house and knows exactly where they are now much more than they did in the past, and that’s making them feel a lot more anxious,” said Horman, a solicitor who specialises in domestic violence and stalking cases.

“I’ve had several clients say to me they feel like sitting ducks.”

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which runs a national anti-stalking helpline, says nearly 1.5 million people are victims of stalking each year in England and Wales.

The trust could not be contacted, but calls to the helpline are reported to have increased.

Katy Bourne, chairwoman of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, which advises Britain’s police forces, described lockdown as a “stalker’s paradise”.

“Stalkers normally would have to go to work, but now with everyone in lockdown they have 24 hours a day to obsess over their victims,” said Bourne.

“If they went into lockdown not knowing much about social media, and how to stalk across it, you can bet your life they’ve learned an awful lot since they’ve been indoors.”

Bourne, herself a victim of stalking, said referrals to a stalking support group in the south of England were up 26% since lockdown.

She said many victims suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and that by the time someone asks for help they had on average already suffered 100 incidents.

“I want police forces to absolutely make this a priority because there are many thousands of victims out there who are suffering in silence,” Bourne said.

“It’s pretty evil … It needs to be called out.”

Horman said there was growing support for a national register of stalkers and domestic abusers similar to the sex offenders register.

“They are serial offenders. If they stop abusing one person they don’t just give up, they will then focus on somebody else and it goes on and on,” she said. “It makes absolute sense to monitor them.”

(Reporting by Emma Batha @emmabatha; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

American killed on remote Indian island off-limits to visitors

FILE PHOTO: A Sentinel tribal man aims with his bow and arrow at an Indian Coast Guard helicopter as it flies over the island for a survey of the damage caused by the tsunami in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, December 28, 2004. REUTERS/Indian Coast Guard/Handout

By Sanjib Kumar Roy

PORT BLAIR (Reuters) – An American visiting one of the islands in India’s remote cluster of Andaman and Nicobar has been killed by a group of hunter-gatherers who live there isolated from the outside world, two police officials said on Wednesday.

The North Sentinel Island is out of bounds for visitors, and is home to the Sentinelese community, who allegedly killed the American, identified as John Allen Chau after he was illegally ferried there by fishermen, the officials added.

“A murder case has been registered,” one of the officials told Reuters. Both officials sought anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to the media.

In a statement late on Tuesday, Deepak Yadav, a senior police officer, said authorities in the island chain in the Bay of Bengal had launched an investigation.

The investigation began after police were contacted by the United States consulate in the southern city of Chennai, which has been in touch with Chau’s mother, the statement said.

“We are aware of reports concerning a U.S. citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” a consulate spokeswoman said in an email.

“When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts,” she added but declined to provide further details over privacy concerns.

One of the police sources told Reuters Chau was a preacher who had visited the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the past. Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island, the source added.

Reuters was unable to confirm if Chau planned to preach on the island, and was not immediately able to trace contact details for his family or a representative.

One police source told Reuters Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on Nov. 16, before transferring to a canoe.

His body, spotted the following day by the fishermen on their return, has not yet been retrieved, the official said, adding that the fishermen who took him there had been arrested.

North Sentinel Island is about 50 km (31 miles) west of Port Blair, the capital of the island cluster.

In 2006, two fishermen, whose boat strayed onto the 60-sq-km (23-square-mile) island, were killed and their bodies never recovered.

An Indian Coast Guard helicopter sent to retrieve the bodies was repelled by a volley of arrows from the community, believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world.

(Reporting by Sanjib Kumar Roy; Writing by Euan Rocha; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)