Saying that existing initiatives have been unable to stem the rise of domestic violence, the PNCR is calling for an urgent national policy review.
At the party’s weekly press briefing yesterday, MP Aubrey Norton noted that the party shared the concerns expressed by organisations and individuals over existing legislation and programmes. “It could be that the problem lies in the administrative and institutional capacity for implementation and enforcement or that related public education programmes are inadequate,” he said, reading from a prepared statement. “Whatever are the reasons, the need for re-examination is clear and urgent,” he emphasised.
According to Norton, the PNCR is urging that the existing legislation and programmes need to be re-examined to determine whether there is need for amendments. Additionally, he said the party is in favour of further training for the police force, a stepped up public education campaign on the evils of domestic violence and consequences for the society as well as a systematic effort to place the issue on the national curriculum. Equally, he added, there must be an understanding of why the socialisation process of, particularly young males, has broken down to the extent that they resort to violence as the instrument for regulating their relationship with their female counterparts.
In this regard, Norton said Guyana must follow the examples of other countries and persuade the University of Guyana to launch continuing research and studies into the pathology of domestic violence, with results being put in use in the way of informing policy decisions and the related public education programmes and campaigns.
Following a number of fatal attacks on women by their partners recently, Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran last week expressed concern about the judiciary’s policy of accepting guilty pleas to the lesser count of manslaughter by confessed perpetrators, urging prosecutors to “stop the carnage” and for judges to “simply shape up” in domestic violence cases.
In an article in the Weekend Mirror, “Women in Danger,” Ramkarran, a Senior Counsel and PPP Executive Member, wrote that the situation demands emergency attention, while noting that sentencing of men for the manslaughter of women has become a national disgrace. “I am shocked that there is no outcry at the leniency of the sentencing, varying from five to ten years in a bad case,” he said. Ramkarran also noted that the combined financial, human, material and institutional resources which the state, NGOs, the Guyana Police Force and the justice system have poured in the area of domestic violence prevention have clearly proved to be inadequate and the entire approach needs to be re-examined.
He noted that hardly a month goes by without a report of a wife, married or reputed, living with her husband or separated, being gruesomely murdered over a domestic issue.
