RED Thread, after weeks of picketing, hosted a press conference yesterday, at its Adelaide and Princes Streets, Georgetown headquarters, to demand the speedy passage of the promised sexual offences legislation. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) also drew attention to increased violence against women and children in Guyana. To support the call for the new law, leading member Ms. Karen De Souza charged that lower priority is being given to violence that occurs in personal relationships than in public.

She said the desired Sexual Offences Bill is expected to make it possible for cases of reported sexual violence to reach the Courts quickly.

De Souza cited the alleged sodomy of four boys, ranging in ages between five and eight, by a businessman and said, to date, the prosecution has been discontinued for one victim after Defence Counsel confused the child.

In another, the virtual complainant was too young to testify and a third is awaiting the magistrate’s ruling.

De Souza voiced dissatisfaction with the sloth in the judicial system and declared something is very wrong that causes cases to be put off for too long.

Referring to the assault of the four boys, she said the proceedings may be postponed for as long as five years, by which time, they would be close to adolescence.

“Do we want to put kids through this trauma when they would have done some healing?” De Souza asked.

She and other in the grouping described the situation as “a stubborn refusal to admit, much less address, the fundamental causes of the increase in violence against women and children and other forms of violence in Guyana.”

They said, among the causes are the effect of teaching children that violence is the right way to address problems; the impact on the children of parents who work long shifts; the economic violence and the unbridgeable gap between prices and incomes for those paid the lowest.

However, they expressed the view that the most important single cause is that too many people do not get and see reason to expect justice from the institutions that are supposed to ensure it, namely the Police, Army and Prison services, Courts and prosecutors.

They said, not being able to rely on law enforcement agencies for justice is one of the reasons many women give for not reporting domestic violence to the Police.

Not trusting them is another related reason, the group said, mentioning that one woman did not use the new Child Care and Protection Hotline because of the perceived disregard for anonymity.

The organisation said it is also working to curb all forms of violence, especially those that affect women and children, beginning with domestic and sexual but including racial, political and State violence.