….says Anil Nandalall
PEOPLE’S Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Member of Parliament (MP) and Attorney-at-law, Mr. Anil Nandlall, has described the Sexual Offences Bill 2009, as a landmark legislation which has reformed and revolutionalised the law of sexual offences in Guyana.
At the time, he was making his presentation and giving his support before the National Assembly, prior to the passing of the bill in parliament. He congratulated Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Ms. Priya Manickchand, for the tremendous amount of work she put into the bill “from the beginning of the consultation process till to the very end”.
He said, “This bill can be described as a landmark piece of legislation, because for the first time in the history of this country, we have a consolidation and an amalgamation of all the sexual offences under the laws of Guyana, in one singular piece of legislation.”
He noted that it creates a number of new offences, adding, whenever a legislation of this type and magnitude is being discussed, one needs to begin by examining the circumstances which may have inspired or precipitated the enactment of the legislation.
“Because this legislation has very deep and far-reaching social ramifications,” he insisted, dealing with a very important aspect of society.
“It is, I think, an accepted fact by now that we have in Guyana an unusually high rate of crime prevailing in our country; it is also accepted that we have an unusually high level of sexual offences being committed in this country,” he stated.

A weapon of exploitation
He observed that what is also peculiar is the victims invariably being children and women, adding, “…sex in our society is almost used as a weapon of exploitation by those who have economic power, largely against those who are less fortunate.”
“I feel compelled to refer to the last few days coverage of a particular incident in our newspapers, which captures, I think, which epitomizes a significant problem that we face in this country, and which this legislation seeks to address,” he insisted.
“Because here you have based on the newspaper report, and I am aware that there is a charge instituted and I will speak in a manner not to prejudice that charge, but it is an important social reflection of the type of situation that this bill seeks to address,” he said.

Reality
He said he thinks that it is important in a debate of this type that one confronts the social realities, and, “if we are serious about tackling the question of sexual crime in our country, we must face the reality of what is going on.”
He noted that in the newspapers, “you have these sad and very sadistic allegations being made against an individual of some prominence, and you read the number of allegations which are being made against this person by very young and underprivileged persons, and it really is a situation that cries out”.
He reiterated that he used that example to demonstrate the type of problems with which the country is faced, and highlighted the fact that in one of the newspapers, there was an article where a sum of about $10M was offered to the victims of the unfortunate and perverted act.
“Now that is exactly what I am speaking about – economic power, financial power being used to purchase themselves out of prosecution and out of charge, and that is what the reality is, and those are the types of situation and the type of circumstances which inspired and precipitated this type of legislation,” he reiterated.

Unique
He said the legislation is unique in many respects, and reminded that the government, through Minister Manickchand, had started a consultation process.
He said a paper for discussion under the title ‘Stamp it Out’ was presented, which was a well-orchestrated and well-publicized consultative campaign and process throughout the country.
The MP said the views of various members of society from all social, economic, and political strata, were solicited.
He said those views were chronicled and they “went back to the drawing board with them and the end product is the bill that we have before us”.
He referred to a study which was done by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA), to demonstrate the reality of what is being faced in Guyana, which survey was taken into account by Minister Manickchand in the stamp it out document.
He noted that a 2005 study found that approximately one per cent of rapes reported to the police results in a conviction, which he stated is an indictment on our society.
Also, he said, a 2007 study found that 92 per cent of victims are women and girls; 69 per cent of the victims are 16 years or below; the abuser is known to the victim in three out of four cases; one in every five perpetrators are related to the victim; more than two thirds of sexual offences take place in the home of the victim or the accused; and only 43 per cent of the victims report to the police within 24 hours.
“This is the reality of what is going on in our country and it is against this background that this bill must be viewed, and it is against this background that the stamp it out campaign was conceived,” he exhorted.
He said the bill has codified in a very comprehensive way all the sexual offences under the law, so that “no longer do we have to search under the various chapters of the laws of Guyana to find what are the sexual offences, and what are the procedures”.
He reiterated that everything in relation to sexual offences has been incorporated in the Act.
Nandlall underscored that Guyana is not unique in this respect, with Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, Canada, and India among several other countries that have taken this step, while South Africa is about to enact a similar legislation.
“The consolidation and the amalgamation into one document of all the sexual laws in a country is something that is going on universally, because sexual offences and sexual violence is assuming greater and greater importance, not only in our country but throughout the world,” he said.
He alluded to the host of new sexual offences, and also noted that there is a particular aspect that deals exclusively with persons with disabilities, with a whole host of very peculiar and specified and specialized principles, which would guide the prosecution and investigation.
He disclosed that the same applies for children who are victims, and the law provides a special treatment for the manner in which they are to be treated.
“The bill also sets out in remarkable detail the constituent ingredient of each of these offences,” he said.
“So comprehensive is the bill that it starts at the investigation stage and it begins to guide the investigator, because the reality is that many times a case is lost before it reaches the court because of the poor, unreliable, unprofessional, and compromised manner in which the investigation is done,” he stressed.
He added that it also treats with great detail the nature and quality of the evidence which is required to yield a conviction, and the manner and the procedure by which it is to be tendered in court.
Nandlall said the piece of legislation also sets out the penalties which a court can impose if the offence is proved, and the penalty is very consistent.
“It outlines the procedures in respect of how the trial of these offences are to be conducted,” he said.
He said the bill outlines in a very elaborate fashion how the entire trial is to go and what protective mechanisms are available for the victims.
“B
ecause many a time, the victims,  normally small children, are very intimated by the accused person,” he pointed out.
He noted this it is a very fundamental mechanism to ensure that “the system remains unpolluted by interference by the defense.”
He went on to note that the bill also deals expansively with the question of bail, and outlines the principles and conditions upon which bail can and should be granted.
To this end, he disclosed, “I am advocating at another forum, for us to have a Bail Act, because bail has always been a sore issue in this country.”
“The caprice and the arbitrariness, and the whim and fanciful way in which bail is granted is now reduced by this bill, circumscribing that power which the court has when it deals with sexual offences and lays down in a comprehensive and logical way and in a systematic fashion, the conditions which must be satisfied before bail is granted,” he said.
Also, even when bail is granted, the regulation to which the accused person must subject himself whilst out on bail is there, he said, which is important.
In addition, he said, the bill also empowers the court to make a number of additional orders of a rehabilitative nature so that the accused person at the end of the process “comes out as a rehabilitated individual”.
He underlined that the bill also outlines how sex abuse victims, particularly children should be medically and otherwise treated; establishes a national task force for the prevention of sexual violence; and a sexual violence unit within the Human Services ministry.
“Here the bill, in an institutionalized way, is setting up permanent types of mechanisms that are set up exclusively and solely to address the question of sexual violence and sexual offences,” he declared.

Social
“This bill is not only legal in its form and in its purpose, but it is also very social,” he highlighted.
He said it serves a preventative process because policies and public awareness campaigns are going to be pursued through these types of permanent establishments, to help apprise society and make them aware of the problems of crime and sexual violence.
Nandlall contended too that the bill dealswith a number of specific legal issues which have formed part of the laws of the country for the last 150 years.
He said it seeks to abolish some of them, reform some, and create new ones, such as marital rape, which is in keeping with modern trends, because “we must move away from the concept where the wife is the property of the husband”.
“There are other specific legal issues that afflict the law of sexual offences and that have hindered the prosecution of these offences which this bill has abolished or reformed,” he said.
“This bill has reformed and has revolutionalised the law of sexual offences in Guyana; it has put it in a modern setting, and it is a bill that I know would receive the agreement of the entire assembly,” he asserted.