PROTECTING WOMEN
VIOLENCE against women has now become one of the terrible ailments of Guyanese society and domestic violence is an area of such violence which seems to be the most common. Incidents of domestic violence are reported in the media with increasing frequency. For instance, over the last two weeks, there have been three particularly savage examples of domestic violence.
The first one was the case of an abused wife, who after several years, could stand it no longer, desperately left her children and husband and went to seek refuge at her mother’s. It was agreed that the wife, Kalvina, would return and take away the children. When she arrived in a taxi, however, the husband immediately attacked her, stabbing her to death and committing suicide afterwards.
The other was a husband, seeing his reputed wife walking along D’Urban Street in Georgetown, attacked and stabbed her and threw her into a drain bleeding. Passers-by took her to the hospital. And the third example was an army captain who shot his girl-friend dead with his service revolver.
With the growing frequency of such incidents, Guyana is beginning to earn a notorious reputation similar to those countries where it is unsafe to be a woman, countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq where the Taliban and ISIS operate and Nigeria where Bokoharam murder, kidnap and harass women with impunity. Unlike the countries of Asia and Africa, where violence against women has its roots in religion and patriarchal culture, in Guyana violence against women has no such deep roots and it is only in the last 20 or 30 years this crime has become prevalent.
The United States 2017 Country Report on Guyana addresses domestic violence. “Domestic violence”, it says, “and violence against women, including spousal abuse, was widespread. The Law prohibits domestic violence and allows for victims to seek prompt protection, occupation or tenancy orders from a magistrate”… The Report also cites allegations of the Police accepting bribes from perpetrators and notes cases of magistrates applying inadequate sentences after conviction.
President Granger’s Senior Security Adviser, Lieutenant Colonel (retd) Russel Combe who hails from Britain, recognised that domestic violence has to be dealt on the basis of both security reform and social reform. In a recent statement to the press, he focused on security reform: “Domestic Violence, I realise, is an issue. It’s a scourge in every society but it is making sure the Police are equipped with the tools to do their jobs in terms of being able to investigate, detect and solve any such crimes…the Police have identified that they do need better facilities at Police stations to be able to take statements and do the first responders’ aspect of investigating such complaints.”
There is no doubt, therefore, that strengthening Police action is imperative in quelling the scourge of domestic violence and this includes training the Police to deal with domestic violence complaints, since it is well-known that in many cases the Police have claimed that they could not intervene in domestic disputes.
Social reform would seem to be the more effective tool in dealing with domestic violence and such reform is many-faceted:
Religion and religious people have an important part to play in the exorcising of the idea that there is something innately wicked or evil in the character of women. Religious teachers should stress the importance of the constructive roles played by women in all religions and properly explain Biblical characters like Eve and Salome. The a-sexual nature of God must be explained and always kept to the fore, so that when the masculine “He” or “Him” is used to refer to God, listeners to religious discourses would not mistake God as being masculine. Unqualified usage of such terms could be an unconscious conditioning of thinking of God as male leading to male chauvinism.
The syllabuses of the Teachers College, as well as the Literature texts prescribed for the Caribbean examinations, should be careful to exclude books or other reading material which could be regarded as inculcating anti-feminine attitudes. Indeed, it would be a positive step to prescribe books and reading matter which would present women in a fair manner giving the important civilising role they have played over the centuries.
In the older Guyanese tradition, women were always treated with respect and given precedence and if one broke that tradition, he was regarded as a boor. This tradition still exists and though it is greatly weakened, it could be resuscitated. The media could greatly help in such resuscitation in their reporting of domestic violence incidents and other instances of violence against women. And politicians, owing to the prestige and role-model status they have among the population, could be exemplars of courteous and polite behaviour towards women. And lastly, the culture of looking askance at or even ostracising males who had been rude or violent to women should again become the norm.
Guyanese society would be happier and more civilised if women were again treated respectfully, given precedence and permitted and encouraged to make their contribution in full measure. But both security and social reform must be effectuated simultaneously.
