-says religious organizations have role to play
Welcoming the United Nations designation of October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, with 2012 being dedicated to ending child marriages, GHRA says under-age marriage should be rare and religious organizations here can play a pivotal role in assuring this.
It also said that society still fails to see the links between the continued abuse of girls and the failure to put legislation into operation to protect them.
The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) said it is sobering to think that the protection of the ‘girl child’ to date has been less of a priority than a catalogue of other good causes. In a press release it noted that the usefulness of the UN declaration is a reminder that society needs to be continually vigilant over the commercial exploitation of sex in all its forms. Guyana has a good record on modern legislation including domestic violence, sexual offences, termination of pregnancy and trafficking in persons; however, it falls short in implementing same as this requires clear policies and a clear idea of what the legislation is intended to secure.
Important features of these Acts, particularly those that extend greater protection to victims, still have not been put into operation, for example, more victim-friendly procedures with respect to reporting to the police, protection of witnesses, obtaining Protection Orders, harmonizing legal, police, health and counselling services and establishing the Sexual Offences Task Force, the release said.
Equally, the debate about the age at which sexual activity is appropriate has never been encouraged. Despite overwhelming public support from over 134 organizations for raising the age of consent from 13 to 18 years, the political parties settled for 16 years without any attempt to justify or explain this decision. “This debate is about the kind of sexual relationships we want to promote between young people, a debate which would force us to confront a major disconnect we face as a society,” the GHRA said.
It opined that the political parties seem oblivious to the discrepancy between condemning widespread violence, child pregnancies, trafficking and the general abuse of girls while tolerating the daily diet of lewd lyrics, explicit films and suggestive advertisements on day-time TV, bombarding young people from all sides.
“How are young people expected to navigate through this society saturated with sexualized images? Healthy sexual relations between young people and adequate protection against abuse require values and consistent policies as well as laws. Unimplemented laws symbolize good intentions without commitment,” it noted.
Regarding child marriages, the GHRA said that any inclination to consider child marriage an Asian problem is understandable since 46% of Asian girls are married below the age of 18 years, but complacency is quickly dispelled by recognition of the fact that 29%, almost one in three girls in Latin American and the Caribbean are married before they reach 18 years. “At current trends, 100 million girls below 18 years of age will be married in the next decade (UN1CEF statistics 2011).”
Religious groups vital
The GHRA also noted that Guyanese (and Trinidadian) statistics are likely to be higher than average in the Caribbean due particularly to Hindu and Muslim cultural traditions. However, it is encouraged by recent press reports about a debate on this issue currently taking place in Trinidad and led by Hindu women’s organizations to raise the age of marriage to 18 years. The fact of this debate in Trinidad begs the question about what steps Guyana is taking to prevent marriages of girl brides. In this respect, arrangements are in place that require persons under 18 years who wish to marry legally to approach the courts for permission to do so. However, it said approval of under-age marriage should be rare and all forms of exclusive relationships involving girls below the age of 18 years should be discouraged.
Religious organizations, in particular, must capitalise on the opportunity and responsibility to wean their adherents away from the practice of under-age marriage, with the State providing appropriate support for their doing so. One of the most effective ways of doing so is to vigorously promote a more positive image of women and effectively implement a regime of legal protection against abuse of young women, the Association said.
Further, the GHRA noted that concentrating exclusively on the historical example of Hindu and Muslim marriage disguises the widespread practice of young girls ‘living home’ in common-law relationships with older men which is of equal or greater concern. The problem is not whether the relationship is formalized to look like a marriage, so much as whether the relationship is such that the girl child is an equal partner, capable of making decisions conducive to her welfare and development. Young girls in sexual relationships render them vulnerable to the complications associated with early child-birth, STI and HIV infections, exploitation and rob them of the opportunity to fully realise their potential due to the severing of their education.
“Apart from protecting girls from abusive older men, reinforcing the idea that adulthood begins at 18 years is more consistent with modern practice in many other aspects of life, as well as harmonizing with international human rights laws to which Guyana subscribes,” the GHRA said. It noted that a major educational opportunity was lost in 2005 during the age-of- consent debate. Rather than the right of protection of the girl child, the basis of the concept of age of consent, it posited that the government encouraged a debate focused on “the distracting, but more fashionable issue of the age at which sexual activity should be legalized.” As a result, neither the protection issue, nor the sexual activity issue was ventilated in a constructive manner and both debates are still urgently needed.
