When we talk about children being the most unprotected group in Guyana, we can add the name Sanesha Lall. The 16-year-old was stabbed to death this week by a 34-year-old abusive man.
But this is not an isolated incident. Teenaged girls have been murdered before in this country by adult predators and because society continues to fail our children, names like Sanesha’s have been added to the list.
For two years this man was allowed to prey on this child. No, I will not refer to a 34-year-old man as the ex-boyfriend or ex-lover of a dead 16-year old. I will not write about this incident like it was two adults involved in a consensual relationship. He is a paedophile and a murderer.
Society continues to fail our children by normalising such relationships. Children are brainwashed by adult men who charm and bully them into rape and we are more quiet than outraged. But even when there is outrage it is fleeting. A few days of condemnation and shock, a few articles and before long we crawl back into our shells and the predators continue to enjoy freedom and life until the next thing is exposed in the media.
Every community in this country needs organisations to lead the fight against sexual predators. We need networks of protectors and defenders of our children who will work unceasingly to curb and hopefully one day end the continuous damage to Guyana’s children. Children must be empowered with the knowledge to identify sexual predators and be taught how to reject and report them when they are approached. Children must feel safe in their homes and schools. The streets must not be a place of danger where they are constantly approached by deviants. And when the abuse occurs in the home, the children need to know that there are adults they can trust and confide in and organisations that will work on their behalf to protect them. I know that there are established organisations – the Childcare and Protection Agency for example – but what we have is obviously not enough for the stories are too often, too painful, too deadly and the ones that are never publicized are far more.
There are those in our society who are quite comfortable with this culture. They will make excuses for the predators and blame the victims. Based on some comments on social media, Sanesha wanted a ‘big man’ and she was ‘young and hot’. These comments about young girls who become victims of paedophiles are not new. Individuals who choose to shift the blame to the victims empower and enable the paedophiles. For adults to write such statements about a child on social media, holding her culpable for her death rather than blaming the abusive paedophile, is truly an indication of a depraved society. Perhaps we do not fully comprehend how sick we are.
I reflect on the times when I was a child and noticed adult men looking at me. I remember being in primary school and seeing a man masturbating in public and beckoning me. And being a teenager and being followed by a man voicing his sexual desires. It is easy for girls to become victims to these paedophiles. Society makes it easy because often we see and hear, but say or do nothing. Many parents do not have conversations with their children to prepare them for the advances of paedophiles. Some parents are uncomfortable discussing sex and relationships with their children. Often children do not know what to do when they are molested or raped. Their molesters and rapists often threaten them and hold the power because their parents have failed them. And it’s worse when those rapists and molesters are their own parents or other family members.
We know that many parents are struggling to raise their children. We know that poverty is a major factor in why many girls become victims of the paedophiles in our society. We know that some parents are aware that their children are being sexually abused but turn a blind eye or benefit from it. And even in instances where poverty is not the issue, the breakdown in parent to child communication is a major factor.
We also have a generation being raised on social media; a generation that has been given smart-phones and tablets with internet access often with little or no parental guidance, and a generation that can in one click can access any information they wish. There are predators who also use the internet to prey on our children.
It was reported that Sanesha’s parents died and she and her siblings were left to fend for themselves. The fact that the community would condone her relationship with this man because she needed help, is another indication of how depraved we are. Could we ever expect men who see young girls in vulnerable situations to genuinely want to help them without expecting their reward to be the right to rape them and call it a relationship?
This man was referred to as her ex-lover and ex-boyfriend by the media. The media is largely responsible for creating the narrative. If the man lived with this child for two years, she was thirteen or fourteen. A thirteen-year-old cannot give consent. Neither can a fourteen or fifteen-year-old. And even though the age of consent is sixteen, you are still a paedophile if you are in your thirties chasing after sixteen-year-olds.
We have to replace words like ex-lover and ex-boyfriend when children are murdered by adult men. He was her abuser. He is a paedophile. He is a murderer.
Guyana’s girls are not the only ones who are raped and molested, its boys are too. These paedophiles are so comfortable harming our children because of the silence and the excuses made for their deviant behaviour; because too often people defend the abusers of children; because too often the children who are abused are blamed the way some are blaming Sanesha; because there is no chemical castration for paedophiles who rape children, and perhaps because there is no death penalty. Some of them go to jail for a time and then are let out to rape again. There is no sex offender registry, which, the last I read about it, was still in the making.
We wonder why there are so many troubled adults in our society and why vile acts continue to stun us. I am quite sure that if many troubled Guyanese are evaluated, much of their deviant behaviour would be linked to being sexually abused as children.
It is time we form that village to protect our children. Sanesha must not be another statistic. We cannot wait for another name to be added to list.
