By Ryhaan Shah
Young school teacher Kescia Branche was cruelly brutalised, and died on November 7th last. Some blame her for her own death. They blame her for wanting to go out to have a good time, and for being out late.
A few years ago, there was a heated debate in the press about rape and rape victims in which several men took the stand that rape was always the victim’s fault. It was about how she dressed, how she behaved, and the company she kept that resulted in her being raped, they argued. Because she was “asking for it”, they therefore could not view rape as a heinous crime, or understand the brutality of the violation.
This line of thinking is prevalent in our macho society, and hundreds of women suffer silently in their workplaces, homes, and on our streets from unwanted behaviours and assaults that include everything from catcalls to physical encounters with male bosses, colleagues, and even friends and family members.
But what is more troubling is that some of the enablers of such conduct and crimes are women; even in cases that involve young children. In a letter to the press, M&CC Chief Constable Andrew Foo stated that Mayor Patricia Chase-Green re-employed the constable who allegedly sexually assaulted a child, even though he had been previously dismissed for the very same reason.
Why no charges were laid against him in the first instance, and why the Mayor chose to rehire him might have much to do with the complacent and trivialising attitudes that exist over such serious criminal conduct.
Now a teacher at Bishops’ High School, Coen Jackson, is accused of grooming and molesting female students for the past ten years. It is reported that the school’s administration had engaged in a cover-up to protect Jackson, and Principal Winifred Ellis has actually blamed the victims by criticising the girl students for being “slack” and “loose”. There rightly are calls for the principal’s dismissal.
The Prevention of Discrimination Act of 1997 Part III lays out Sexual Harassment as an offence; though as far as I am aware, no such case has been brought before the courts. It is not because Guyana’s workplaces and communities are so safe and our menfolk good little angels.
The fact is that many women are so dependent on their jobs that they are afraid to come forward and accuse their often more senior and powerful male colleagues of sexual harassment. Then, most worryingly, there are the female enablers, which would include wives, partners and family members who do not appear to understand the seriousness of the behaviour and the damage that is being done, especially to young victims who are manipulated and betrayed by authority figures like teachers and the police.
There is currently a barrage of sexual harassment charges in the US that is making headline news. Many view it as a seismic cultural shift in America. Whereas even up to a decade ago the fault seemed to lie with the young Monica Lewinsky than with the powerful President Bill Clinton in that scandalous sexual harassment case, most Americans are now believing the women’s stories and accepting sexual harassment as a behaviour that men use to demean and violate women.
Such harassment is rooted in a sexist attitude wherein men see themselves as superior to women, and feel they can use, abuse and treat them as objects or toys for their gratification.
Sexual harassment and assault run the gamut from whistling at women, to making obscene jokes in their presence, to the crime of rape. Women can be made to understand in the workplace that, if they do not submit to the harassment, they could lose their job.
There are hundreds of women in Guyana’s workplaces and communities who face sexual harassment each day, and it would be a very courageous woman indeed who would come forward one day and institute charges against her harasser.
As things stand today, however, she would be aware that it is her and her lifestyle that will be on trial, rather than the offender’s; and that she would have to relive the pain and the humiliation of the violation in a public environment that would be ready with its social judgements and prejudices, which would not all be in her favour.
Throughout the Caribbean, musicians sell sexually explicit lyrics that demean women. And some women enjoy them! We are a far way away from the cultural shift that would guarantee all girls and women the respect and regard that are rightfully theirs.
