Dear Editor,
After 24 hours of travelling, I literally just got off the big (slow) boat from Georgetown to Port Kaituma via the brutal and challenging Atlantic Ocean, when I opened the newspaper. There I saw ‘Miner gets eight years jail for rape of girl, 11.’
Editor, I immediately put the newspaper down and started writing this letter even though I didn’t want to because I was so tired. There were several questions which came to me while reading the report: Is eight years in prison for raping an 11-year-old a fair sentence? In other words, does the punishment fit the crime in this case?
Secondly, after eight years, would this young girl’s life be restored to the state it was before the rape? Thirdly, can someone tell me in which other country would a perpetrator get only eight years for destroying a child’s life?
Editor, maybe when it comes to justice, my expectation and standards are too high or maybe the justice system’s expectation and standards are too low. Overcoming and recovering from being raped is a lifelong ordeal. It can take that long to recover from sexual trauma, if the victim ever recovers. Many rape victims never recover and a number of them suffer Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which can take many, many years to recover from.
In handing down the sentence, the trial judge noted, and rightly so, that the child would have to live with the trauma of her experience.
Rape is one of the worst things that can happen to a child.
What the defendant has done is to take away the child’s innocence and force her to become a woman prematurely, robbing her of her childhood. He also inflicted emotional, physical and psychological damage.
Speaking to the convicted Sherwin Sharples, the judge stressed that the new Sexual Offences Act takes a serious view of rape, and yet he was sentenced to a mere eight years. Eight years only in prison for an act the justice system says it is serious about.
Editor, is it me or am I missing something here?
If the justice system is serious about stopping children from being raped, it would have to give out longer sentences.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Pantlitz
