A slogan prominently displayed in Albouystown reads: “No bail for child molesters!” This is a serious warning that perpetrators can expect no mercy in that community, because many times the combined administrative construct, the justice system, and society itself abysmally fail the victims.
Indeed, there should be no bail for child molesters. However, for whatever reason, incidents of child molestation and rape are increasing rather than decreasing because of the laxity of law-enforcement officials, despite the severe and punitive legislation enacted through the militancy of former Human Services and Social Security Minister, Priya Manickchand.
An editorial in this newspaper had advocated castration for child rapists and the death penalty for murderers; as well as a re-introduction of the cat-o-nine tails.
And then there are the negligent parents who reject out of hand complaints by their children that the latter were being abused, especially if that abuser is a relative, a known (and charming) acquaintance, or a family friend. Parents have been known to punish children who have made such complaints. The lifelong traumas that victim would have to endure would be exacerbated a million times over by the feeling of betrayal by someone they should absolutely trust for protection – a parent.
The law-enforcement and justice systems are failing such victims, and a primary case that comes to mind is one in which a young girl was drugged, taken to a house, and had all sorts of atrocities committed on her before being locked in by the high-profile perpetrator and his girlfriend.
The naked victim climbed through a window where she hung precariously before being spotted by a passerby and was rescued. What ensued was a highly publicised case of abduction, rape, and sodomy.
However, mere months afterward, that perpetrator, who has a very powerful father and is distinguishable in public on his own account, was released from custody and was hosting public events. He is walking free to this day.
One wonders if the authorities even care about the anguish and grave distress of the victims and their families; because in the instances related above, as happens as a norm rather than an exception, the law enforcers seem not to care about the poor, powerless, voiceless and vulnerable. The powerful and monied can easily purchase and subvert justice in this country; and the jail proliferates with many innocent victims while many real criminals walk the streets, free to continue their depredations on the real victims of society.
Cases of student molestation by teachers surface constantly in the media, but this is only the tip of the iceberg, and there have been many cases in which teachers who have been accused are allowed to remain on the job without the requisite protective mechanisms being put in place to ensure the safety of students.
In the Corentyne, a teenager who was raped in her kitchen by her adult neighbour took her own life because the perpetrator was allowed to walk free and continued to harass her, while other villagers either taunted or shunned her.
Fathers, grandfathers, uncles, brothers, other relatives and friends, teachers, public officials and strangers rape, fondle, sodomise the innocents in society and get off either scot-free, or with a figurative tap on the wrist by members of the justice (sic!) system.
There was a recent case of sisters in a village who had been habitually abused by several members of their community, with full knowledge of the entire community, who merely saw the girls as discardable trash. These children were so damaged from being raped by adult males from very tender ages that doctors said that they would never be able to conceive, because damage to their reproductive organs were extensive and irreparable.
The recent incidence of rape of helpless boys in an orphanage and a seven-year-old girl who was taken from her school, which should be the most protected environments for children, highlight once again the prevalence of these depravities perpetrated against the nation’s most vulnerable assets – its children; and unless the powers that be take an holistic, immediate, and drastic approach to ending this scourge, every child in Guyana would be a risk of becoming a victim of these bestial savages who certainly have lost their human souls.
A while ago, the media reported on the case of rapist Kenston Drakes, in which an all-male jury found him guilty, after which Justice Franklyn Holder sentenced him to 16 years in prison.
Kudos are due to Justice Holder, also magistrate Roby Benn who remanded rapist Ronald Forde to prison, and magistrate Nyasha Williams-Hatmin who remanded a father who raped and sodomised his own children to prison; and shame on the magistrates and judges who let perpetrators of such heinous crimes free. Shame also on the lawyers who treat the victims like criminals in efforts to represent  their clients, thereby inflicting further trauma and instilling a sense of hopelessness and injustice on lives already destroyed by the actions of their clients.
The emotional, psychological, and physical damage caused the victims by these perpetrators are irreparable, such as in the instance of the baby boy whose digestive tract was destroyed by a father who sodomised him while the child was left in his care, which is another of a plethora of incidents in which rapacious beasts ravage the innocence and lives of the society’s children.
But it is not the law-enforcement agencies that are failing the children of the land. It is the members of communities who witness the unspeakable acts and stay quiet, preferring to mind their own business and not make waves.
Raped, brutalised and murdered Neesa Gopaul’s younger sister, Miriam, is still in the hands of the very relatives who refused to protect the two children because they claimed $8,000 per week was not enough to maintain the two little girls. These relatives sent these helpless children back to their abusive situation, where Neesa was eventually killed.
Today, they are fighting to keep the other six-year-old sister despite her father’s relatives begging child-protection authorities for her, because she is now sole heir to her murdered father’s property; and even the courts are rejecting the pleas of her father’s wealthy siblings for their brother’s surviving daughter to be given over into their care.
But then the callous, seemingly money-hungry family has a very powerful person who is ensuring that they retain custody of the child and her inheritance. Here again is a case where a child has become a victim of a system that failed her older sister, Neesa, who paid the ultimate price for society’s neglect of Guyana’s most valuable but also most vulnerable assets – the nation’s children.
When will it end?