The GHRA says despite the legal improvements that have been made to secure women’s rights none has been accompanied by sufficient determination to translate them into effective protection that safeguards the lives of women.
“The contrast between the re-assurance and the reality highlights once against the gulf between the rhetoric of politics in Guyana and the lived reality of ordinary women,” the executive committee of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) said, in its message on the observance of International Women’s Day.
The group also noted that the reality, in terms of the lack of effective protection for women from male violence, is a failure to convert intentions into practice.
According to the GHRA over a decade of work has resulted in the Guyana law books including a catalogue of legal reforms promoting equality of women in marriage, education, division of property, protection against trafficking in persons, domestic and sexual violence, sexual harassment and age of consent and others; achievements which are often recited at domestic, regional and international fora whenever the opportunity arises.
In fact, it noted, that as recently as last week Minister of Human Services Jennifer Webster told the UN Commission on Women in New York that the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls commands high priority in the Region, while citizens were left horrified at a YouTube video featuring a policeman beating an unarmed woman and her child lying on the ground at Marudi in the Rupununi, in connection with a mining dispute, while others, some armed with heavy weapons, looked on.
The disgust among ordinary people over incidents such as the Marudi savagery seem not to permeate the political class sufficiently, noting that if it did more would be done to undercut the attitudes and culture which sustain a virtual pandemic of violence against women and children in Guyana, the statement said.
“The persistent failure of politics to achieve more than symbolic change in gender violence needs to be examined,” it added, noting that the “the disconnect between law and the lived reality on the ground actually prompts the question whether the real political agenda is simply to ensure that politically correct laws are in place to assuage international opinion.”
Whether they translate into improved safety for women seems to be a matter for others, the GHRA said, questioning how else could a “supposedly scandalised society continue to live so calmly with weekly violent assaults and deaths of women and girls?”
According to the release, no politician to date, has criticized the nightly contradiction of television news announcing the latest gender horror followed immediately by a commercial promoting the upcoming weekend’s fete, which often objectifies women.
The GHRA says the presence of police at Marudi was reportedly in response to complaints that small miners were illegally working lands belonging to a big overseas gold company. This prompts the question of how much attention politicians and particularly ministers are devoting to the potential for increased violence against women in mining areas due to the gold rush.
“What measures have been taken and how many patrols have been mobilized to ensure the safety of indigenous women, female miners, shop-keepers, domestics and sex workers. Moreover, how many police patrols have investigated trafficking of women?” the GHRA questions.
In order to bridge the gap between the rhetoric and reality, meaningful observance of International Wo-#men’s Day 2013 should include steps to activate a series of protective measures that have remained dormant because the Sexual Offences Task force continues to be “symbolic, suffocated by males and deprived of the oxygen which independent civic organisations bring to the struggle for rights” among others.
The group also notes that acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell needs to act quickly to demonstrate that he shares the nation’s revulsion by announcing the disciplinary measures taken against the police officers responsible for the inhumane and degrading treatment at Marudi and the laying of appropriate charges.
