Very often new laws are passed which are intended to be beneficial to society but in many instances the public at large do not have a full awareness and clear understanding of them which to a great extent is self defeating. This situation arises sometimes because enough is not done by the relevant authorities to inform and educate the public on the new pieces of legislation.
However, with respect to the welcome and much heralded landmark legislation – the Sexual Offences Act, which has won accolades from all sections of the society, it has been reported that an aggressive public education will be embarked upon. This move most certainly will be welcomed across the societal spectrum.
According to the developer of the public awareness campaign, Mr. Alex Graham, the aim is to make the general population aware of the new offences and penalties created by the legislation, which, itself, strengthens the justice system’s response to sexual violence.
He said the focus will be on public education, early intervention and prevention strategies to help reduce sexual violence and interventions to strengthen communities towards supporting victims better and protecting the vulnerable.
Graham said it is a broad based action plan, involving traditional and new media and social networking tools, as well as interventions in communities, faith-based organisations, clubs, local and central government agencies, in order to build a broad national coalition.
He said the goals are to put an end to sexual and related domestic violence; change the attitudes of men and boys towards sex and violence; empower women and transform communities into safe places, especially, for women and children.
Graham said the programme will start with an education focused on changing attitudes and behaviour from childhood and to enable early detection of sexual offences, including supportive actions that empower women and children, provide community-based support, access to resources and alternative shelter and care where necessary.
It is most laudable that the programme will focus on changing attitudes and behaviour from childhood because many of our social problems have their origins in poor or indifferent attitudes.
This landmark legislation will indeed go down in our history as one of the most significant laws and therefore it was not surprising that it earned much praise from none other than UNICEF’s Country Representative, Dr. Suleiman Braimoh who declared: “We may, one day, look back at this day and say that, indeed, this was the turning point with respect to how to handle sexual offences in Guyana.”
Braimoh observed that the law not only tackles issues of definition of sexual offences but also the very many things or aspects of that situation that are not normally tackled, including issues of prevention, survival from such predatory acts, awareness, education, data collection and analysis.
He said UNICEF is committed and mandated, by the UN General Assembly, to advocate for the rights of women and children.
“As part of that, we intend to live up to our mandate and provide as much support as we can to the efforts of Government, especially with respect to the planned multi-media campaign that is going to be going on from now,” Braimoh assured.

Very pertinently Braimoh pointed out that, more often than not, persons focus on trying to punish the people who perpetrate the acts.
However, he noted: “One of the things this bill gives us the opportunity to do is to move beyond that. It is not only the actors who commit these crimes that need to be dealt with in Courts. The victims need a special type of treatment.”
Acknowledging key lessons learnt from the past, he said: “The first thing is that no matter how well intentioned a bill is, no matter how well intentioned an initiative is, the point remains that, unless there is a very robust collaboration between Government, civil society and international development partners for that matter, working in a situation and context of highly nurtured leadership, we will not be here and will not be where we are today.”
It would be hoped that the manner in which the Sexual Offences Act was passed and the follow planned education campaign would be emulated as regards future major pieces of legislation.
It would also be hoped that the public education programme would pay special attention to the people in remote communities because coastlanders have a tendency not to appreciate the challenges and difficulties those people have in accessing information.