Despite being on the front burner in terms of advocacy by social activists and the relevant government agencies, there seems to be no positive change in terms of the incidence of domestic violence across Guyana. Indeed, in recent days there seems to have been an unpleasant spike in the number of reported incidents, leaving us to ponder on the efficacy of the measures being taken to reduce this continuing scourge affecting our families.
At a seminar tackling domestic abuse sponsored by the Supreme Court of Judicature in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat a year ago, President David Granger advocated a studied approach to domestic violence, suggesting that its eradication requires a careful study of the causes. He noted that while the law can punish persons for their actions, it does so after the fact and thus is not necessarily preventative. His analysis also factored in the imbalance of power between parties in a relationship and the fact that domestic violence is likely to flourish in unequal relationships.
Though critical, this primary approach to studying causation takes time, the sort of time that victims of violence unfortunately don’t have, as can be seen from the almost daily headlines chronicling the murder and maiming of mostly women across the country.
The experts and stakeholders alike all agree that the incidents of domestic violence need to be carefully studied and placed in an overall societal context. This process will, of necessity, involve the police investigators and require the collection and sharing of data with the relevant agencies tasked with undertaking such a study. For certain there is no shortage of cases historically, and new ones seem to be occurring with disturbing regularity. What is likely missing at the moment is any serious studied implementation of the President’s recommendations, or musings on the issue.
In the interim, however, there is still need for a carefully considered, stop gap, short term approach to reducing the incidence of domestic violence that takes into consideration the measures currently in place and determining which ones are failing or are being poorly executed in order to force the necessary improvements.
The statistics on domestic violence in Guyana are staggering for a country with a population of less than a million persons. On an annual basis domestic violence reports average over 1,000 and a related murder is recorded at least once per month. Just recently, Lonette Nicholson-Prince, 22, was stabbed to death by her estranged husband at the New Amsterdam Psychiatric Hospital. Days earlier, Bhartie Udho’s hand was severed by an ex-spouse who allegedly stalked her for years. These stories put a human face to the statistics and make for a highly emotional state of affairs which the police investigators and first responders from the Ministry of Social Protection must deal with dispassionately and compassionately so as to gather objective data for analysis by the relevant experts.
Not that these experts should have their work cut out for them, since there are many competent studies on the issue of domestic violence and violent crime in general already completed worldwide. For instance, criminologists Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson’s General Theory on Crime have found that “individuals with lower levels of self-control are more likely to be involved in criminal behavior, in a gender-sensitive context.” When alcohol is factored in, of which men are significantly more likely than women to be the consumers, the potential for the escalation of incidents to the detriment of women become more readily apparent.
The punishment of persons who commit crimes is expected to work as a deterrent to those successfully prosecuted, effectively making them wary of committing the offence a second time, and it is also expected to make others fearful of committing similar crimes. However, because in Guyana it usually takes years for a case to be heard in our courts the eventual outcome of domestic violence cases is generally achieved long after the recollection of the specific crimes has faded from the collective memory of the population.
This intolerable gap between the committing of a domestic violence crime and the judgment from criminal justice system, has the effect of reducing the deterrent factor of the punishment, and protracting the suffering of the victims, making psychological closure for the victims harder to achieve. The result is that the society remains in a state of psychological malaise, trapped in a cycle of repeated violations with no nexus being apparent between the violent act and the appropriate response. This heightened state of unease within the population, primarily among women as the vulnerable segment, is unsettling to families and potentially disrupting to social cohesion.
Because of this, it is probably time that consideration is given to a special court to hear domestic violence matters within a reasonable timeframe. With the formal establishment of the Family Court in June 2016, domestic violence cases were listed as being under the purview of this court and the necessary rule changes effected. It is uncertain at the time of writing how many domestic violence cases have been scheduled, commenced or concluded since its establishment, or if domestic violence cases are still being scheduled under the previous system.
Moreover, changes undertaken by the criminal justice system must include instituting the responsibility of the Police Force, the prosecutor’s office and the courts, for the protection of victims from harm, coercion or intimidation throughout the investigation and trial, as well as the safeguarding of case files which continue to disappear even as the court records are being digitized.
We learnt earlier this week that key documents have vanished from the file in a sex abuse case concerning young boys. According to media reports, it was only after the case files were transferred from the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court to the Supreme Court for trial proceedings that it was discovered that important documents were missing. Once perpetrators and potential perpetrators see the criminal justice system as broken and flawed in their favour, then the use of punishment as a deterrent to crime is severely hampered, and persons are actually emboldened to commit such crimes, even repeatedly.
Assuming that the process has even commenced, the crafting of a scientific and carefully researched set of solutions to the domestic violence problem in Guyana is a good step, as opposed to the largely visceral outpourings that usually follow each heinous act. However, with the existing laws in place, and considering that domestic violence cases are rarely in the realm of a ‘whodunit,’ it is high time that the authorities stop paying lip service to combating this cancer destroying families and communities and to efficiently and effectively execute and fast track the prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators.
This will go a long way to promoting psychological healing and giving closure to the victims and the society as a whole.
