There is a need to address the cause of sexual violence in Guyana and particularly the growing incidence involving female children.
This is according to Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack, who told attendees at the 19th Turkeyen and Tain Talks on Thursday at the Pegasus Hotel that 177 of 301 cases scheduled to be heard in the June assizes for Demerara relate to sexual offences; of that number 126 or 50% involve a child victim.
“The girl child is being abused by both trusted and non-trusted persons in her life both inside and outside of the home including institutions of learning…this is very serious and very disturbing,” Ali-Hack noted adding that her office has reviewed files “for a child as young as nine months and for adult males as old as in their 60s.”
“We seldom receive files where the perpetrators are females,” she told those listening to presentations under the theme Interrogating sexual violence in Guyana.
She further explained that since the new Sexual Offences Act has been in place there has been a large increase in cases reported to the Police, investigated by the Police and prosecuted.
According to the DPP 55% of cases heard in 2017 were for sexual offences as were 60% of cases in 2018 and 55% of cases in 2019. Demerara and Essequibo currently have more cases to be heard.
Conviction rates have also increased with a 10% conviction rate in 2016 increasing to 25% in 2017 and 60% in 2018. There has so far for 2019 been a 32% conviction rate in Demerara, 12.5% in Berbice and 0% in Essequibo.
It was revealed that conviction rates have significantly increased with the advent of the Sexual Offences Court as in Demerara the conviction rate moved from 2% in 2016 and 27% in 2017 to a whopping 62.1% in 2018.
“Given the alarming number of offences being committed and given our small population there is clearly a need to address the cause of this criminal conduct being perpetrated by adults on persons, the majority of whom are children; female children. It affects them throughout their lives,” Ali-Hack concluded.
Despite this urgency, the forum also heard that a little more than two and a half years into its existence the National Task Force for the Prevention of Sexual Offences appears to be defunct.
“The Sexual Offences Act will be 10 years old next year and the task force is integral to that Act but it remains in stillbirth. Sometimes you have one meeting and then nothing else happens because you have ministers who have critical roles on that Task Force and they are abdicating their duties,” Task Force member Nicole Cole declared adding that Guyana needs to do more.
Cole also noted that a soon to be released survey has diagnosed Guyanese society with “Accommodation syndrome” as it has become apathetic even as offenders seem to have developed an appetite for children.
The syndrome more fully known as the Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome (CSAAS) was coined as a means to explain how children react and adapt to survive sexual abuse. Roland Summit the doctor who first coined the term described it as being composed of five categories, of which two define basic childhood vulnerability and three are sequentially contingent on sexual assault. These stages are secrecy, helplessness, entrapment and accommodation, delayed, unconvincing disclosure, and retraction.
Cole too lamented that most of the cases of sexual violence which reach the courts involve child victims.
According to the Sexual Offences Act the inter-agency task force is required to develop and implement a national plan for the prevention of sexual violence. It further states that Members of the task force are to be appointed by the president and include the Ministers of Legal Affairs, Home Affairs now Public Security, Human Services and Social Security now Social Protection, Amerindian Affairs now Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs, Education, Health, Local Government now Communities, Youth, Sport and Culture, senior public officers with responsibility for law enforcement, health and human and social services, and persons from non-governmental organisations.
The last report of the Task Force was a December 2016 report which stated that the Ministers of Social Protection, Public Security, Public Health and Indigenous Peoples’ Affairs signed on to a protocol to have the Task Force operational.
The task force, which should meet at least every three months, is responsible either by itself or through appropriate ministries for developing, publishing and coordinating the implementation of a National Plan for the Prevention of Sexual Offences which includes activities to prevent and eradicate sexual violence in Guyana.
