In a sustained call to legislators for swift implementation of reformed sexual offences laws, the Coalition to Stamp out Sexual Violence against Children picketed the Office of the President yesterday for the second time this month.
The increasing reports of sexual violence against children have prompted the body to intensify its campaign as it monitors what is happening at the parliamentary level. The intensified efforts are directed to parliamentarians and members of the judiciary, who the coalition has repeatedly urged to “honour their responsibilities” towards children.
Identifying the period between January and April this year, the body referred to newspaper reports of 37 cases of sexual violence against children, and underscored the issue of low conviction rates for such cases in the judicial system.
“We are picketing to warn all elements of the justice system that we are going to monitor their actions to ensure that they use the new legislation for the protection of our children far better than they have used what is available to them under the present legislation…”, the coalition said in a statement yesterday.
The coalition, comprising non-governmental organisations Red Thread and Help and Shelter, said also that it was picketing to hold “Parliament’s feet to the fire”, while emphasising that it wants both government and opposition to stop replacing the protection of children from sexual violence with other priorities which they recognize as “security issues” or “national issues”.
The body made mention of a 2005 Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) report, which had informed that only three of 31 statutory rape cases were tried in the High Court, and that none ended in conviction during the period 2000 and 2004.
Further it pointed to information compiled over a few years at the two NGOs, which indicates an increase in the number of children at risk.
The statement said that during the period November 2004 and August 2008 Help and Shelter saw young victims between the ages of 6 and 17 years, 43 per cent of whom were girls. Among male child victims 54 per cent were between the ages of 6 and 11 years. It was noted that some victims were as young as two years old, and the percentage of all cases falling below the age of 18 years was 47.
Mention was also made of a 2007 GHRA report which discovered that girls between the ages of 12 and 16 constituted the age group most vulnerable to sexual assaults (43%); those between the ages of 1 and 12 years constituted the second most vulnerable age group (26%) and that the majority of victims of sexual violence were below 16 (69%).
According to the coalition statement, the GHRA research also found that the violence was not from strangers since the perpetrators were mainly men close to the children.
“In the Help and Shelter report, 20% of cases involved biological fathers or step fathers; 20% neighbours; 7% uncles and family friends. This matches the experience of the other groups who work with child victims of sexual violence,” the statement added.
The coalition observed that Guyanese are divided on almost every issue, but opined that people can come together in the defence of children “against the barbarity of sexual violence”.
