-Red Thread, Help and Shelter
The state continues to fail to ensure that justice is served to women who have been violated, two rights advocacy groups have said.
“It would appear that in Guyana our justice system is now in the business of re-victimising victims and survivors of gender-based violence instead of putting into place laws to prevent such violations of the human rights of women and children and services to support victims/survivors”, Red Thread and Help and Shelter said in a joint statement yesterday.
They referred to a news item carried in the Wednesday edition of this newspaper which reported that a magistrate granted bail in the sum of $30,000 to a woman who had said she had been raped and then attempted suicide. The woman, a mother of six, had said that she had reported the rape to the police on the day it occurred and even though the lawmen promised to deal with the matter, they did not. The statement noted that “traumatized and emotionally distraught by this double victimization”, the woman said she drank poison.
The police, adding further insult to the two injuries already inflicted on the woman then proceeded to charge her with attempted suicide, the statement noted.
The NGO’s declared that members of the police force-who are supposed to have been trained to understand the trauma felt by survivors of violence, should be applying greater sensitivity in these cases.
They said that their behaviour in this particular case is in total opposition to what the Ministry of Health has said about extending services to address the growing problem of suicide and attempted suicide. “The message now is to make sure you kill yourself because if you survive instead of mental health support and care the police will charge you”, the statement noted.
It said that the “perversity” in the police force appears to extend to the judiciary “which seems bent on prosecuting women who are struggling to survive assaults against them”. The statement referred to reports in the October 17 edition of the Guyana Times and November 10 edition of the Kaieteur News where magistrates fined women who asked that charges in domestic violence cases be dropped. There are other reports from other courts of similar fines on women, the statement noted.
It said that in the cases mentioned, in spite of the intent of laws and various declarations of zero tolerance for violence against women, they are being treated in ways that do not take into account the social conditions they face.
“On December 10, 2009, the end of this year’s 16 days of activism against violence against women, we continue to witness the failure of the state to ensure that justice is served to women who have been violated”, the statement said.
