More than a month after a 21-year-old woman reported that she was raped, she is still awaiting justice even as policemen claiming that they were from Georgetown turned up at her home to question her in a manner that made her uncomfortable.
The woman recently told Stabroek News that she is becoming increasingly frustrated as the police at the Leonora Police Station – where the report of rape is being investigated – have not kept in contact with her. She has also approached the offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Crime Chief.
Early last week, the woman recounted, she received a call from the office of the DPP informing that the file was sent there and returned to the police with instructions that the man be charged with the offence of rape. The young mother said that she was later informed that the man was charged and is to appear in court but was shocked when a day later, some policemen who claimed that they are from Georgetown turned up at her house to question her.
“But to be honest I did not like how they talk to me. Is like they asking me if me child father had anything to do with, trying to say like me child father set this thing up,” the frustrated-sounding woman said. She is yet to hear from the police at Leonora and expressed hope that the man is not taken to court without her knowledge.
Even as the police are supposed to be closer to charging her attacker, the young woman said she is still tormented by the man who would see her and laugh at her on the road. “The other day was he and his girlfriend and they looking at me and laughing at me. I couldn’t believe that a woman would do something like that, she don’t know what that man do to me,” she said.
The man, who was employed at the Transport & Harbours Department, has since been fired from his job after the allegation was brought to the attention of Works Minister Robeson Benn and it was also revealed that he submitted sick leave for the time he was held in the police lock-ups.
The young woman had recounted how the man raped her one night after he offered her a drop. She was battered and bruised and there was evidence of the man’s semen on her body when she escaped from his car and sought refuge from a patrol from the Parika Police Station.
She is fearful that the crime committed against her may not see the light of day because of the fact that the man has a relative in the police force and a senior functionary at the Transport & Harbours Department where he worked had suggested that the matter be “worked out” in addition to the manner in which she was treated by the policewoman investigating the report and, more importantly, that the police made her do two medicals – one right after the incident and the second after she would have taken a bath.
However, with the help of the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO), whose office she approached on the advice of a policeman and human rights activist Sherlina Nageer, she managed to see some progress in the investigation.
President of the GWMO Simona Broomes assisted the woman in arranging a meeting with Crime Chief Leslie James and speaking to this newspaper after, Broomes said that she was happy that she was not a victim of rape “because… the system for justice is a horror, is like they make you another victim of another crime.” Broomes pointed out that the young mother was rescued by a police patrol vehicle but she is still waiting for justice weeks later.
Nageer accompanied the young woman to the DPP’s office where she gave a statement and she expressed frustration over the apparent slothful investigation of the police. Nageer observed that the people who are victims of such heinous crimes have to run behind the police for justice. “The police are supposed to be public servants, working for the citizens of the nation, but instead, it’s like they have to be begged and prodded to do even the most basic of tasks,” she stated.
She pointed out that even the policewomen lack empathy despite the training they underwent and this leaves most ordinary Guyanese with very little confidence in the justice system and rape victims especially, out in the cold. “To me, it reveals the extent to which sexual violence is ingrained in our society, and the systems that support and maintain it,” she stated.
Further, Nageer revealed that there was no rape kit at the West Demerara Regional Hospital where the woman went for a medical and this is just another instance in which the authorities all around, in multiple sectors, are failing rape victims in Guyana. She called for more accountability at all levels of the system pointing out that kits should not just be dropped off one time and the job is done but rather checks must be made to see if they are still in stock and staff must know where to find them.
“There needs to be a commitment to justice… nobody takes rape seriously in Guyana apparently. Without a rape kit being…in the hospital, assault- a lesser charge- is what ends up being filed. It’s the trivializing of brutality,” she said.
