Zenita Nicholson is a Guyanese advocate for sexual rights and gender justice. She is the Guyana Country Coordinator of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition (CVC) and Secretary on the board of trustees for the Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD). She also received the inaugural International Women of Courage Award from the Embassy of the United States of America in Georgetown on March 12, 2014.
Guyana joined the rest of the world to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, 2014. The Women and Gender Equality Commission held a conference on March 7 to mark the Day. The Ministry of Education mounted photo tributes to women in the education sector along Brickdam in Georgetown. A silent march, organised by Citizens Against Rape (CAR), was also held. Slogans on the walk included: “I said No;” “No means No;” “Do not turn a blind eye to rape;” “The justice system needs to work for the victims;” “and “Most persons raped, know their rapists.” The event concluded with a bonfire where everyone placed their record of rape, whether personal or of someone they knew, in the fire as a sign of healing and renewal. CAR is a new, local civil society group dealing specifically with the issue of rape culture in Guyana. The term rape culture is used to describe an environment in which rape is prevalent, and in which sexual violence is normalized and excused in media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through using misogynistic language, objectifying women’s bodies, and glamorizing sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.
Sexual Objectification
Sexual objectification appears in many forms in our society. It is women being catcalled and harassed just for walking down the streets. It is commercials we see when we turn on the TV where the images portrayed are often close-ups with emphasis on particular body parts of women such as their breasts; buttocks or mouth in advertisements selling beer; clothes; concert tickets; shoes or jewelry to name a few. We see it locally where women’s bodies are used as “sexy” backdrops for concert performances, music videos, and ads for entertainment events. It is the lyrics in some of our local music and scripts in comedy shows. It is where women are portrayed as mere sexual objects, rather than whole human beings with other characteristics.
Sexual objectification can lead to women being disproportionately affected by depression as compared to men; they develop issues with body image; have increased anxiety about appearance. It increases women’s likelihood of body shame and discomfort. It tends to make “normal” women feel bad about themselves as they often do not look like the women in the pictures or videos, which are often air-brushed, photo-shopped and do not resemble the models’ actual appearance. I am sure many can identify with this and often times have heard women around you melancholic about the size of their breasts or waist; buttocks; or the texture of their hair; colour of their skin and eyes, and even the length of their eyelashes.
Guyana Supreme Court judge, Justice Roxane George, in her address at a conference held by the Women and Gender Equality Commission on March 7th commemorating International Women’s Day, 2014 reaffirmed that, “Hand in hand with a responsive justice system, is the need for an environment that fosters respect for women. Our national institutions, in particular, must be at the forefront of providing the moral compass of the nation as regards respect for women. The media, especially our national media entities, must not portray women as objects of disrespect whether it is in the music that is played, the photographs that are portrayed or the comments and programmes that are aired.” Justice George called on the Women and Gender Equality Commission to provide such a moral compass.
Trivialising Rape
Recently, Guyanese witnessed the saga of events in the local news that led to the untimely death of a female taxi driver. Savitri Palmer was raped and killed, despite her husband informing and taking police officers to the location, as his wife informed him of the details of her whereabouts in an earlier conversation. It is reported that upon arriving at the scene, the car she drove was abandoned with her eight-year old son asleep in the backseat; her slippers and some of her clothes were scattered about and a scream was heard coming from the bushes. The police trivialized the situation and abdicated their responsibility saying, ‘the woman gone with she sweetman.’ Having heard the screams for help from this woman, any reasonable person would expect the police to investigate the matter. In this instance, that report was not taken seriously, and then ignored, which resulted in Savitri Palmer’s death. I urge the Commissioner of Police to investigate this matter and hold his ranks accountable for failing Savitri Palmer.
Victim Blaming
The survivors of rape are often blamed. Questions like: What were you wearing? Why were you there? Why were you there so late? And many are told, to remain quiet; to forget it happened and move on with their lives; if you did not like it you would have spoken about it before; what did you do to upset him like that; and it happened long ago. The burden of not being raped is substantially placed on the victims, where they are taught how to not get raped rather than teaching men to respect women, and not to rape. According to the World Health Organisation, victims of sexual assault are 3 times more likely to suffer from depression, 6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, 14 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, and 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
Additionally, the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) is not fully implemented, making it even more difficult for justice to be served to survivors of rape. There needs to be ongoing specialized training for all sectors of the justice system, health and social services and law enforcement on the provisions of the SOA 2010. The lack of an integrated and comprehensive service and protocols for the treatment and care of victims of sexual violence also needs to be addressed urgently. The responsibility of the state to educate Guyanese about the SOA 2010 has failed to materialize for the past 4 years. What is equally unacceptable is that the Sexual Offences Task Force, an inter-agency body whose overall responsibility is to develop a national plan for the prevention of sexual offences and the eradication of sexual violence, is not functioning, as the subject Minister of Human Services and Social Security has failed to set up and convene meetings of this statutory body.
Guyana is party to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The Government of Guyana has particular obligations to all Guyanese women as a signatory to CEDAW. As such I would like to reiterate key recommendations, which the CEDAW Committee published after its review of Guyana in July, 2012: “To accord high priority to the full implementation of the Sexual Offences Act and to put in place comprehensive measures to prevent and address violence against women and girls, recognizing that such violence is a form of discrimination against women and constitutes a violation of their human rights under the Convention and a criminal offence and ensuring that women and girls who are victims of violence have access to immediate means of redress and protection and that perpetrators are prosecuted and punished.”
Stereotypes and Harmful Practices
Patriarchy continues to dominate every sphere of our society, often manifesting itself as racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other forms of bigotry and intolerance. Lesbian and bisexual women are targeted for rape as they are often misconstrued and seen as sex objects. Their emotional attraction towards persons of the same or both genders is often not accepted, misunderstood, feared or perverted. Reports from lesbian and bisexual women indicate dealing with issues of being drugged and raped; receiving threats of rape to “fix them” (punitive or so-called “corrective” rape); receiving death threats, if they report their attackers.
Male-to-female transgender persons indicate that they often do not report sexual violence as they are further victimised by the police officers and healthcare providers. One trans-woman details her heart-wrenching ordeal in the ground-breaking report, “Collateral Damage: The Social Impact of Laws Affecting LGBT Persons in Guyana” authored by Dr. Christopher Carrico, as being arrested and held for three months before being told what crime she was being charged with. She reported being, “beaten with rope, embarrassed in front of others at the police station, stamped on, dragged through the drains, taken to clean the station yard.” She also indicated that she was, “beaten, stripped, fingered, thrown in the lock-ups to be raped by others in the lock-ups. The police threw condoms to them (the other inmates).” She further stated that she was also forced to sexually service the police, and while in custody the police spit on her and beat her.
I reiterate the CEDAW committee’s recommendations and urge the Government to implement the concluding observations of Guyana’s review, which recommend that the state should seek, “to provide effective protection against violence and discrimination against all groups of women through the enactment of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that includes the prohibition of all forms of discrimination against them and the decriminalisation of consensual adult same sex relations…” and “to put in place, without delay, a comprehensive strategy to modify or eliminate patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes that discriminate against women, in conformity with the provisions of the Convention. Such measures should include efforts, in collaboration with civil society and community and religious leaders, to provide education about and raise awareness of the subject, targeting women and men at all levels of society.”
Ending Rape Culture
As a report on rape culture done by the Women’s Centre at Marshall University noted,
“Rape culture affects everyone. The rape of one woman is a degradation, terror, and
violation to all women. Most women and girls limit their behaviour because of the
existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do
not. That’s how rape functions as a power means by which the whole female population
is held in an inferior position to the whole male population, even though many men
don’t rape, and many women are never victims of rape. This cycle of fear is the
legacy of rape culture.” It is this cycle which we must commit to ending in Guyana.
