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We start tonight with Matura-Shepherd, who has been a long-time columnist at the Amandala Newspaper. As a social commentator, she's written on many different topics, including domestic violence. This evening, she shared a few observations with us about its possible root causes, and why it's become a cultural norm. Here's what she told us:

Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney/Social Commentator
"When it comes to domestic violence and abuse in a whole, people are not been able to accept that it has become a culture in our society and we are limited on how we see abuse. We see physical violence, or sexual violence, then we say abuse. There's this whole emotional physiological violence that has been happening in our society and of course they all stem from a home. All of us come from a family and we were either abused or saw abuse as kids, then we grow up and become abusers or we accept abuse in our life."

"So long before this tragic incident that has been growing up the issues I've been pushing. It's unfortunate that this incident would happened, it's tragic and I have a problem on a whole on how we manage abuse and especially domestic violence, for serval reasons. One, we tend to be reactionary, a major event like this happens and a lot of people have opinions where they say something and do something but that conversation should only happen then. Two, many times those people close by know already what's happening, friends and family know and they don't want to interfere on that. Which is so strange because the Belizean society on a whole are very interfering. So conveniently they don't want to interfere but my opinion is that the reason many don't interfere is because they themselves have been traumatized by abuse either while they were young or they themselves are in an abusive relationship. Or for example, when people go to the police station, courts or even seek social services, you're going to the very same people, most of them who have been victims of abuse themselves or are abusers."

"You have to understand abuse always has a pecking order. If a wife is being abused by a husband, most likely the wife will be abusive to her children or in her workplace she will be abusive to co-workers. But if that spouse who is abusing her, he didn't just start being an abuser, he had to have had a history before of being abused, some kind of trauma in his life. Once we start to identify the cycle, and recognize it for what it is, I believe it's a start. I don't have all the answers."

"The other concern I have is about how we deal with abuses. I work in the court system and unfortunately in the court system, many of the people that are front line or even the judges and magistrates that you have to deal with and mostly magistrates in the districts at the family court, is that they can't handle the issue. Not because they don't want to, it's the training. For you to deal with the abuse and domestic violence, you have to understand what is domestic violence. You can go before certain magistrates and they can tell you immediately that you deserve to get an order because I can see the bruises. But go and tell you that your husband tells you things for the past years and it keeps going, some will say 'and you stayed there with all of that?'. Some of them have an attitude, I've seen it. You sometimes have magistrates that they have their own personal abuse their reaction is different. It's not to put those people down but it's to tell you that the very system itself, the people you go to many times cannot appreciate what is abuse, because it's not something that you can just tangibly hold."

"Go back to the old days and this is during my time growing up as a child. We hear when the neighbors are beating their kids, not one adult goes to rescue that child. When we got our beating from our parents, not one adult came to rescue us, they actually stood there and looked because everyone thought it was normal."

So, as you heard, Matura-Shepherd wants the issue to be treated as a matter of urgent national interest, instead of being forgotten and then picked up again when domestic violence returns to the headlines.

She's joined, at least in principle by attorney Lisa Shoman. Over her legal career, she's been a human rights advocate, but the issue of women's rights has been her favored project. She's hoping that the waves of public concern over Linda's murder will bring major players to the table, so that sweeping changes can be made to better the lives of the women population in Belize.

She's put together what she calls a "Manifesto for Linda", and its in its draft stages. It's a very ambitious project that's calling for sweeping changes for women's rights.

Today, she shared with us what she wants as the end goal for this Manifesto for Linda:

Lisa Shoman, Attormey/Women's Rights Advocate
"This movement started on Sunday in my kitchen, literally with me sitting and thinking what it was that was needed. So I've written the first draft of the manifesto, I'm now up to the 2nd draft. I've shared it very widely with health professionals, I've shared with lawyers and other people that I trust. At this point it is in its infancy and I don't have anyone's permission to call their names. so at this point, this is me saying these are the things I would like to see on a manifesto. Let's discuss it and what I'm going to try to do is have a small, but agile group that will agree on a manifesto within the next week or two for us to be able to have a platform to move forward from."

"One of the things that I was very inspired by was a visit 4-5 years ago to a place in El Salvador called 'cuidad mujer'. I was invited as a part of a parliamentary forum; at the time I was a senator. El Cuidad Mujer in El Salvador is a holistic center where women can go and it was set up to deal with mainly domestic violence, sexual offenses, sexual assault, sexual harassment, trafficking issues. What it is it's essentially a campus where women receive services that range from sexual and reproductive health, that range from approaching the police. It's staffed by women, for women, there is a full childcare center, you can get a subsidized meal and get almost every type of sexual and reproductive health need fulfilled. There are seven of these centers in El Salvador, it has a population of 5 million people. I think this is where we want to move towards in Belize."

"If we can start with one center, we can expand it to at least 3. It's co-founded by the Inter-American Development Bank and government of El Salvador. But seriously the women of Belize deserve no less than this. We continually say that the majority of voters in Belize are women. The majority of households in Belize are headed by women. Women are nation builders and yet we do so little to support their lives and ambitions and to deal with the real everyday problems that they have."

Shoman's "Manifesto for Linda" is very extensive, and we'll explore a few choice elements of it in tomorrow's newscast.