Interpersonal violence is at a crisis level and government will be working on a plan to address it, President David Granger says.
“It is a national crisis now and we need to deal with it at a national level not a governmental level, not at an NGO level, but to bring all stakeholders together to deal with this problem, especially at the level of young people,” Granger said during the recording of last week’s edition of “The Public Interest.”
The weekly programme, produced by the Ministry of Presidency, dealt largely with domestic security and bringing the country’s crime rate down.
Granger said that the main problem now seems to be interpersonal violence. “I would say that ten years ago we were concerned with execution murders… driven by the drug trade or some other form of motivation but right now crimes are being committed by persons who know one another, husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, friends, relatives and it is troubling,” he observed.
He said too that government is well aware of the problem and in the months to come it will be studied with a view of finding ways to address it.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), interpersonal violence is the “intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting, in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”
Granger noted that last Tuesday he met members of the National Security Committee and he asked how government can address interpersonal violence.
“I would say that there are problems at the level of the family, that we need to pay attention to what is taking place in the family…we need to pay attention to what is taking place in the schools. There is violence in the schools and this should be one of the institutions which corrects faults in the domestic environment. There are problems in wider society, the way people deal with solving conflicts,” he said.
The President added that it is very difficult to understand “the fierceness” that occurs. He said that he is not only concerned about incidents of interpersonal violence but the ferocity of such incidents. “Why would I want to be stabbing somebody so many times after it is clear that the person is injured or is about to die?” he questioned. “Something is happening in society and I don’t think the police, on its own, can solve the problem. The government on its own cannot solve the problem and I have asked the National Security Committee to work with academia to see whether sociologists and other non-governmental organisations could come together to address this problem so we can solve it at a level of the state,” he added.
He said that he is concerned about the murder rate even though Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum has said that it is lower than in previous years. “That is cold comfort,” he noted.
He added that he is also concerned about suicide, particularly since Guyana has the highest suicide rate in the Western Hemisphere.
Further, he said that there are policies/strategies in place to deal with suicide and other forms of interpersonal violence. “I would say that some of it would have to go back to education and social action. I am not aware that there is such a policy now but we need to start teaching conflict resolution skills, anger management skills within our schools and I would ask that…all five faiths [Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Baha’i and Rastafarian] deal with anger management, deal with helping young people to manage relationships and to deal with conflict,” he added.
Granger said that he would not admit that government was shortsighted on the issue. “We went through the most difficult period since independence, between 2000 and 2010, and the amount of execution murders…what we are seeing now is the secondary impact. People who have themselves witnessed that violence have become violent,” he opined.
He said that it is now widely recognised that in cases of trauma, there should be some counselling, especially for the victims or those who are very young. He added that persons must be able to access the tools to deal with problems they face to resolve conflicts, while noting that the only a multi-agency approach would work.
