Another pregnant woman severely beaten by husband

By Andrew Carmichael

A 21-year-old pregnant woman is now nursing injuries about her body, becoming the latest victim of domestic abuse in Guyana.
Seema Bisnauth, of Rampoor, Corriverton, Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice – Corentyne), said that she was severely beaten on Saturday evening while at home.

According to her sister Latoya, she visited her sister at her home on Sunday but after calling out for her several times without response, she realised that something was amiss.
She said that she was eventually allowed into the house by her brother-in-law and found her sister lying on the bed.
“When I see her laying down in the bed, her eyes were closed and she couldn’t see and he was right there. She told me that it is two girls from the market beat her up,” the 22-year-old Latoya told this publication. She said that she volunteered to take her sister to the hospital and while on the way to the medical institution, her sister finally confided in her that it was her husband that beat her.

She said that her poultry farmer husband went home on Saturday afternoon annoyed and started hitting her, causing her to lose consciousness. She related that when she regained consciousness, she was lying on the bed and could not see.
After telling her story, Bisnauth was taken to the Springlands Police Station, where a report was made.
She was then taken to the Skeldon Hospital and subsequently transferred to the New Amsterdam Hospital.
Police later arrested the poultry farmer. The couple have been married for three months. They have a three-year-old child and Bisnauth is eight months pregnant.
According to Latoya, this is the third time her sister has been beaten by her husband.
She said the couple’s three-year-old child had to be removed from the home and now lives with a grandparent.
This is the second woman in Berbice that has come forward to tell her story of domestic violence.
On Monday, another woman was injured at the hands of her reputed husband but she refused to offer evidence against him. Swaswattie Etwaru, 33, who was severely beaten by her 24-year-old husband last week, which resulted in her being hospitalised, told this publication that she has refused to press charges against her husband. She said that her decision was influenced by the fact that she already has a child with her husband and is five months pregnant.
On Tuesday, six months after Derrick Solomon, a taxi driver, was charged with attempting to kill his common-law wife, he walked out of the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts a free man after she refused to testify against him.
The 60-year-old man of Lot 10 Block F North Sophia, Greater Georgetown, was charged for the attempted murder of Carol London on March 2, 2019 at their North Sophia, Greater Georgetown residence, where the couple shared a common-law relationship for over 10 years.
When the matter was called before Magistrate Sherdel Marcus-Isaacs, London informed the court that she does not wish to proceed with the matter and will not offer evidence.
The prosecution was contending that on March 2, Solomon and London had an argument and he left their home, when he returned sometime later, armed himself with a knife and dealt the woman several stabs about her body.
The injured woman was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) where she was admitted as a patient.
The victim had received injuries to her hands and face.
Just recently, Acting Police Commissioner Nigel Hoppie noted that statistics revealed that there were 2080 reports of domestic violence reports made in 2017 to the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and as a result of those reports, there were 1171 cases made by law enforcement authorities.
For the year 2018, there were 1491 reports, which led to 837 cases made by the Police.
“We are all aware that domestic violence continues to be a serious social threat and it is everybody’s business because it does not only affect victims at their homes, it affects individuals at the workplace, and it affects every other family, it can also affect us at schools. Turning a blind eye to these occurrences can further threaten among other things, our culture…we can still hear insistent clammer by family members of victims for legal intervention,” Hoppie stated.