Whenever cases of sexual and physical abuse hit the media, which is often, I try to stay away from public discussions of it. There is a heaviness that comes with being aware of all the ways that our society continues to fail women while rushing to coddle and justify the actions of their abusers. There are many elements to this but the majority of it has to do with the disregard for bodily autonomy and consent that is rife within Guyana.
To be a woman in Guyana is a weary affair. You are forced to experience not only the abuse of family, partners and strangers often from young ages, but also forced to deal with judicial and political patriarchal practices that continues to make the country unsafe. When one adds the dynamics of race, class and nationality to sexism within Guyana, the picture becomes even grimmer.
Young men are raised to view women as sexual objects, there for their pleasure and satisfaction. While young women and girls are often raised to believe that their bodies are not their own, but rather that of their parents and partners. To use your body for pleasure or to earn from your sexuality can result in being shamed and castigated because of course, the standard belief is that a woman’s body must only be used in service of their husbands and as vessels for their children.
This belief of possession over women’s bodies is intricately tied in to rape culture, as is the one that women and girls are somehow less valuable when they become sexually active outside of marriage or have more than a “respectable” number of sexual partners. Any act that seeks to provide control and ownership over one’s body is seen as being contrary to the expectations of womanhood. These expectations continues to harm women daily as they are set up as being passive actors with little to no agency. This results in the still widely held belief that married women and those in relationships cannot be raped by their partners. Regardless of one’s commitment to another person, it does not mean that one gives up their rights over their bodies.
Married women, much like every other person have the right to control whether or not they want to engage in sexual activity and anything that occurs out of the scope of consent is assault. Consent can be withdrawn at any time someone is not feeling comfortable, even if sexual activity has begun. It must be understood that gaining consent once does not mean that you have gained consent for all future interactions and consenting to one sexual activity does not mean consent has been given to all others.
The current case of the serial rapist that targets Venezuelan sex workers, minors and other vulnerable persons has put on display the way in which Guyanese continue to willfully misunderstand consent and bodily autonomy. Due to the majority of those surviving the rapist’s attacks being sex workers, many persons argued that sex workers cannot be raped and that even if they are, it should be expected given that they are selling their bodies.
Sex work is work. It is an occupation that unfortunately has a lot of moral stigma behind it. This stigma continues to put sex workers in harm’s way, as they often have to operate in unsafe environments. In targeting Venezuelan sex workers who have sexism, language barrier and xenophobia working against them, the serial rapist was banking on the fact that they would not be believed and he would be able to get away with his crimes virtually unaffected. He has a clear pattern of violence against women and children, yet continues to get bail for the charges laid against him.
This shows the way in which the judiciary continues to fail survivors of sexual assault and encourages abusive actions. The concept of justice is usually out of reach of the average citizen when it comes to assault. Particularly if they are women or girls who are not considered to be the “perfect victim.” The image of the perfect victim promotes the idea that only those who are chaste or fit narrow ideals of what a victim is supposed to look or act like are deserving of belief and justice. Meanwhile, abusers continue to wage war against all those who are vulnerable.
