Tambunan Seminar for Community Leaders on Domestic Violence


The objective of the seminar, held on 23 May 2006, was to raise the awareness of community leaders in the Tambunan district about the issue of domestic violence. Some 120 community leaders comprising mostly village headmen, village security and development committee members, as well as the native court chief and judges attended. About a third of the participants were women leaders from the village security and development committees.

The programme covered the social and legal, both civil and native, aspects of domestic violence with talks given by experts from the district welfare office, the police and the native court. A team from SAWO conducted a two-hour workshop to share our experiences and work on domestic violence over the past 20 years.

The seminar was very well received by the community leaders. Our team was very encouraged by the show of support and concern expressed by the participants during the discussion and dialogue session. The women leaders were very vocal and said that more sensitivity and concern need to be shown by the village and district leaders in tackling incidents of domestic violence. To our knowledge, this was the first time that a majority of male community leaders attended such an event. At the end of the workshop, all the men came forward to join the white ribbon campaign on “stop domestic violence”.

The event was organized by the Tambunan District Welfare Services Department and the district’s Children Protection Task Force (SCAN). Holding similar workshops in the outlying villages and establishing local support groups for women and families in crisis were some of the suggestions put forward and supported by the participants.