More stringent measures needed to prevent sexual violence – protesters

In light of the recent incidents which have seen both young men and women being sexual assaulted, a group of citizens has taken a stand against the current judicial system, which those citizens believe continues to fail victims of rape and at-risk citizens.

This is as the City Hall protesters returned for a third week, the small group having grown on Thursday as more concerned citizens came out to speak up against rape.
At the forefront of the calls for a revision of the judicial system in handling rape cases was Dr Raquel Thomas-Caesar, who explained what prompted the group to take to the streets.
In doing so, she relayed, “One of the things we would like to see an outcome from this is originations and offices. What are their procedures for dealing with situations like sexual harassment, rape? Are they aware what they should do when a situation of rape or harassment occurs in their office?
“Rape is very serious because it is a very serious crime, and any crime needs to be reported to the police,” she continued.
With that being established, Dr Thomas-Caesar, who was at the time representing local organisation Citizens Against Rape, told Guyana Times that there are many facets of sexual violence which are lacking attention in Guyana. At the top of her list was the issue of consent.
“The age for consent is 16; so any child under the age of 16, even if they say yes, that is not consent because of the age. If somebody is drunk and they have sex and then they say they were raped, the fact is: when somebody is drunk and can’t do anything, they cannot issue consent.”
Adding to that, the social activist pointed out that the common excuse of women dressing seductively is no justification for rape. In fact, she highlighted, even women who are fully clad are victims of rape and other forms of sexual molestation.
As such, the public demonstrator went on to address the laws available in Guyana to protect victims and penalize the perpetrators of such heinous crimes.
“We have to fix our law. 1% conviction rate from our judicial system is just not good enough, and we need to fix it,” she contended.
Dr Raquel Thomas-Caesar further underlined, “We have a very good Act, the Sexual Offences Act, but it needs to work. There are many things in there that can protect people and victims of rape.”
According to the last crime statistics issued, the Police have indicated that there were 171 rape cases reported as at August this year. However, in recent months, there has been a spike in these instances, which have seen particularly brutal outcomes.
Meanwhile, just earlier this week, a Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) man was charged with having sexual relations with a 13-year-old girl after he appeared before the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts and was released on $250,000 bail.
On Friday, a pastor was arrested on rape allegations in Diamond, East Bank Demerara.