Alissa Trotz is editor of the In the Diaspora Column
We are facing an epidemic of violence against women and children. In a May 10 Diaspora Column titled ‘Stricken with Apathy: Indifference and Invisibility in Relation to Violence in Guyana,’ Savitri Persaud wrote that “every day as these atrocities riddle the headlines, it seems as though the nation lets out an apathetic sigh and shrug. There is a flurry of letters to the press expressing indignation and outrage…followed by a flurry of action that reveals itself to be inaction, until the next headline announces another victim.” I was reminded of this article when two weeks ago news broke of the murder of 16 year old Neesa Lalita Gopaul. Not a day has gone by since then without some mention of the horrific events surrounding her death in the press.
Shadow Home Affairs Minister Deborah Backer has rightly condemned this child’s death as a shame to all of us, while CIOG President Fazeel M. Ferouz pointed out that as a whole society has “failed this child in her plea for help, protection and counselling.” Indeed. What is tragic, obscene even, is that it took Neesa Lalita Gopaul’s brutal death – and the accidental discovery of her remains stuffed into a suitcase in a creek on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway – for her to finally become visible. We are all ‘speaking’ for Neesa now that she is gone, now that she cannot represent herself, from the Indian Arrival Committee calling on organizations to use Neesa’s death as a catalyst to fight violence against abuse suffered by women and children, to high state officials, political parties, editorials and letters to the press expressing outrage and anger as the shocking details were revealed. But why was Neesa so invisible while she was alive, despite her numerous attempts to get people to hear her, while she was being tortured, violated, drugged? She went to the police station to report abuse. She told her teachers at Queen’s College what was happening. Her child’s body testified on her behalf, with marks of violence that her teachers photographed. Her performance in school after her father’s death indicated clearly that something was deeply wrong, before she stopped attending altogether. Let us begin with the incontestable fact that Neesa did speak up, and she was continually silenced by community and bureaucratic indifference and incompetence before her killers silenced her permanently. This too is a form of violence, and we have seen it time and again in recent years in relation to our children, whether it is violence directly inflicted by agents of the state – the torture of a 15 year old at the hands of the police and the complicity of the medical practitioner in the abuse – or the violence of indifference and lack of follow through that resulted in Neesa Gopaul’s murder. In her diaspora column Savitri Persaud also described her distinct impression, having observed courtroom proceedings dealing with the alleged sexual molestation of young boys by a businessman, that the legal system was stacked against those it is supposedly meant to protect.
This is no time for cover-ups. We need to ask some hard and difficult questions about the wider culture of impunity and lawlessness that exists in this country, and how it leaves the most vulnerable among us desperately exposed to perpetrators of all stripes. Before I am taken to task for ‘politicising’ the issue in this way, we should take the pulse of Guyanese society, because anecdotal evidence clearly suggests that people’s confidence in the legal and criminal justice system in general is abysmally low. What drives this perception, and is it borne out by the evidence? Narrowing this just to the issue of child abuse, how many cases are reported to the authorities and what are the outcomes? Even this is incomplete, since incidents are also not reported for a variety of reasons all of which must also be tackled head-on: because people turn a blind eye; do not want to become involved; do not know who to turn to or do not believe it will make a difference if they make an official report. How many cases actually make it before the court, how long did it take before they went to trial, and how were they resolved? What is happening at every step of the way? These are just a few of the questions we need to ask, to get a full sense of all the cracks, the gaping holes, through which our children are falling.
In the last four years Parliament has passed the Protection of Children Act, Status of Children Act and Adoption of Children Act. In 2007 then Minister of Home Affairs, Mr. Clement Rohee, shepherded the Juvenile Offenders (Amendment) Act through the National Assembly. All to huge fanfare and under the glare of the media spotlights. And earlier this year, the Sexual Offences Act was finally passed into legislation, with Minister of Human Services and Social Security Priya Manickchand commenting that across the region, Guyana is ‘a model in the implementation.’ It’s difficult to know what to make of this boast. The paradox, the vulgar contradiction even, is that we seem to be faced with a situation in which proliferating legislation appears to be accompanied by an increase in violence against women and children (and while we have no specific official figures on this, there are other observations of a general trend upwards, as in an October 4 report in which the Stabroek News noted that murders were up 20% at the end of the third quarter, when compared with the same period in 2009). One would expect that with more laws and visibility, rates of violence would start going down, but tragically the relationship seems to be in the opposite direction.
An important study of domestic violence in Trinidad and Tobago was published a few years ago. The book, ‘Everyday Harm,’ was written by Mindie Lazarus-Black, professor of criminal justice and anthropology at the University of Illinois. Black is preoccupied with these similar and disturbing upward trends in violence in the face of a battery of laws designed to prevent it. Her focus is on domestic violence, and the book seeks to answer the following question: “Why is it that, in spite of laws to protect people from harm, so little results from that legislation?” It is highly relevant to what we are dealing with in Guyana, and next week’s column will be devoted to outlining some of the specific findings.
One thing that is revealed clearly by the book is that, as Savitri Persaud remarked, “active and meaningful enforcement across all institutions of law and order is paramount.” This is something that Minister Manickchand recognised in her press conference on the series of events that led to Neesa Gopaul’s murder. A thorough internal investigation was promised. The operations manager at the Child Care and Protection Unit has since resigned from office. Kaieteur News has reported that the Guyana Police Force has been directed to submit daily reports on domestic violence, child abuse and sexual offences to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
These are all critical steps, but we should not see them in isolation from other related and egregious acts of abuse and violence. Does anyone remember what was promised after the torture of the young child by members of the police force? Or the case of CN Sharma accused of child sexual assault? Or what happened when a religious leader was charged with carnal knowledge of a 14 year old? Or do we remember, as Nigel Westmaas and I wrote back in April of this year, that despite allegations that include making improper overtures to a child, Kwame McCoy remains on the Rights of the Child Commission with the backing of the government, with no effort to have him recused until an investigation is properly and transparently resolved? What is our own responsibility to ensure that the connections are made, and that the follow through happens? That this will not just be “a flurry of action that reveals itself to be inaction, until the next headline announces another victim?” Young Neesa Lalita Gopaul never asked for her name to be circulated over the internet, to become famous or remembered in this way.
She never asked to be martyr for a cause, or for her picture to be broadcast all over the world, perhaps to become the latest image to be attached to banners vowing to end violence against women and children. She was just a child, entering her final years of high school, with her whole life ahead of her, and all she asked was to be kept safe and alive, and she did what we would expect children to do, which is to go to adults for help. This is the horror that we must fully acknowledge, for she was silenced while alive, and all the noise about and around and on behalf of her now that she is dead is already too late.
