Human rights activist Karen de Souza has condemned the treatment meted out to a 14-year-old rape victim by the officers at the Turkeyen Police Station, where the girl was made to wait eight hours for a female officer to accompany her to the hospital for a medical certificate.
This occurred the day after the bloodied girl was taken by her parents to report the attack and was told to return the next day to be taken to the hospital for the medical.
Calling the treatment “inhumane” and “disgusting,” de Souza told Stabroek News the actions of the officers go against what is set out in the new Sexual Offences Act, which has provisions to minimise the additional trauma that victims experience while trying to seek justice.
The child’s mother visited this newspaper with her daughter yesterday to complain about the actions of the officers and she is also calling on the police to quickly apprehend the man who committed the act last Thursday night.
The child was grabbed from outside her home and taken to a lonely spot, where she was brutally raped. She also sustained an injury to her back during the attack.
The child and her parents had reported the attack shortly after it happened but the police sent away the bloodied victim and told her to return the following day to be accompanied to the hospital for the medical certificate.
De Souza pointed out that the victim should have been taken the very night to the hospital instead of being asked to return as she would have gone home and taken a shower, thus interfering with the physical evidence that would have existed of the attack.
The following day when the child and her mother returned to the station, they were asked to wait for a female officer. The wait lasted from around 8am in the morning until 4pm.
“It is a total lack of consideration for what the person is feeling,” de Souza said, while adding that it was also in violation of the revised Sexual Offences Act. “It is disgusting,” she declared.
The child’s mother recounted that after the police officer arrived, she took them to the Accident and Emer-gency Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital and left them there while she proceeded to the police outpost in the hospital’s compound and chatted with her colleague. When the woman and child approached the triage nurse, they were informed that they had to visit the hospital’s out-patient section or the nearest health centre. This information was told to the police officer, who called her superior, who indicated that they should wait. T
he woman said she contacted her husband, who turned up at the hospital and “get on bad” after he learned what had been happening. It was only then they were allowed to see a doctor. After examining the child, the doctor issued the certificate and also gave her some medication. The child was also seen by a counselor at the hospital.
De Souza said she cannot comprehend why such a bureaucratic approach would have been taken at the hospital, while adding that the hospital has certain protocols in dealing with such victims which have worked in the past. “It is a ridiculous and sad encounter for someone who would have had such a horrific experience,” she said.
The child’s mother also complained about the police’s seeming unwillingness to actively look for the perpetrator. The man is known to the child and his family has approached her parents to “settle the matter” but they advised that the man should turn himself over to the police.
A senior police officer in the division said that the police are looking for the man, who is known, and no stone would be left unturned.
De Souza advised that the police have three months to prepare the file and in the meantime the victim should be counselled and be prepared for court.
