The suffering of some young girls (and boys)

Nov 22, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

In every society there are morals. People talk about having scruples. For example, a man goes into his friend’s home and sees something of value. Scruples would prevent him from taking that thing.
Scruples would prevent some of us from picking up women in the streets for sexual favours. Scruples would also prevent most of us from engaging in sexual acts with our children or from taking money from someone even though we are impecunious.
I would therefore expect some lawyers to have scruples and decide on the cases they would take. Of course, I recognize that every individual is entitled to legal representation, especially since the tenet is that an individual is innocent until proven guilty.
But on Friday I got a lesson in the absence of scruples in our society. I heard some horror stories that made me quail. And I wondered at the society in which we live. I heard about tales of rape of the innocent.
I did know of the case of the Anglican priest who molested a baby. This was a man who took an oath to lead me to God; to help me understand right from wrong, to help me to respect all mankind and to teach me love.
I was the individual who did the story about him being ensconced in his manse with a schoolgirl attending a school in his parish. As a chaplain in the Guyana Police Force nothing came of that episode. Instead, the goodly Bishop sent him to Trinidad.
He returned to persist in his sick ways. He molested his wife’s granddaughter, went to court defended by a lawyer, and walked with his Bible on every occasion. I hasten to say that it was not the Bible that kept him out of jail but the judicial process.
He is just one of so many. There are fathers who engage in sex with their daughters to the extent that in a few cases they impregnated the child. One such child is now in the Drop-in centre trying to patch up her life.
In another case, things reached the stage where the daughter firmly believes that she is in love with her father and actually left the Drop-in centre to return to his loving arms.
In another case, a father sent his daughter for petroleum jelly to aid in lubrication. He then taped the mouth of his 10-year-old daughter and had his way with her. I was sickened.
I asked about the cases of child rape and I was told that even when the victim wanted to testify, lawyers made this all but impossible. The questions they asked the victim were beyond imagination. In the case of a four-year-old, a magistrate sat at the bench and allowed a lawyer to ask her whether she wined and whether she liked it.
How sick can we get? Why would a lawyer stoop so low for a few dollars?
There is a case on the Essequibo Coast where a neighbour raped a girl of 14 and is now walking free. The matter went to court but the cross examination forced the victim to relive the experience. In the end she told the court that she did not wish to lead further evidence.
Her story extended to her little sister who is still virgo intacto but who wants to be raped like her elder sister. She has been known to escape from her home and to walk the streets at nights seeking the experience. She has been rescued so far but the officials say that she is scarred and is self destructive. She is only 14.
The stories are myriad and it would be an exercise in time wasting to mention all of them. What I do know is that as a man who fathered three daughters, I felt sickened. My daughters are all grown women now with lives of their own, free to make their own choices and safe in the knowledge that they are not emotionally scarred by sexual abuse.
I asked about the promised paper committals that would save the victim from having to testify in a lower court and again in the higher court if ever there is a committal. It has been decades too long in coming and it is still promised. I have a serious problem with our law makers taking so long to introduce legislation that would save the largest portion of our population.
We race to fight violent crime by voting millions if not billions of dollars to the police and army. We smile when we hear that a criminal is gunned down but we ignore the very criminals in our midst who prey on our children.
I have learnt that most of the victims of child sex abuse never learn to develop a meaningful relationship. And I have learnt that our society has an apathetic view to monsters who have sex with children. Convictions are rare here. The Guyana Human Rights Association makes a point about the absence of convictions in child sex cases and in cases of rape and we fail to take notice.
Many of the women we see moving from relationship to relationship are victims of child sex abuse. Many who accept beatings are from violent homes and see that as the norm. Prostitutes are among this group and we fail to understand why they do what they do. It is more than the money.
There are nearly 200 young children who have been rescued, some of them far too late but sometimes, it is better late than never. This number is only the tip of the iceberg and the number of men who prey on children is so much larger.

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