Making women of little girls

Jul 12, 2011 Editorial

Last week, one of the daily newspapers blared the news that a 13-year-old had given birth at the Georgetown Public Hospital. The newspaper further reported that from appearances the authorities have turned a blind eye to this issue.
The law stipulates that anyone under age sixteen has not reached the age of consent. Anyone caught having sex with someone under sixteen, therefore, is guilty of rape. There was a time in the not too distant past that the age of consent was thirteen. The defence in a criminal case of rape, if the person was below the age of thirteen, was that the perpetrator mistook the girl to be thirteen.
The laws were also gender specific. Only women could be raped and for the charge of statutory, the victim had to be women. The society ignored those who attacked young boys regardless of the age of the child. The one charge of buggery was all that could be applied.
Reaction by the public to a case involving a fourteen-year-old girl forced a change in the laws. The police could not intervene because the child had reached the age of consent but society felt otherwise. But being a people who often have double standards the very objectors sought to have a law that discriminated against a male under sixteen having sex with a girl under sixteen. No law should discriminate and Guyana ignored such a proposition.
Since the passage of the new law there have been prosecutions because the society, at the same time, began to pay close attention to children. It began to ensure that the children’s rights were not violated and in the process made a stunning discovery. Child rape was very prevalent in the country. Above all parents were raping their children.
Recent information suggests that for this year alone more than one hundred fathers have sexually molested their daughters. Then there are the predators. Too many young girls have been sexually abused. At last count the Child Welfare Department of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security was dealing with some four hundred cases of child sex molestation for this year alone.
Some of the predators would argue that the girl consented to the sexual encounter although the law stipulates that a child under sixteen cannot consent to sex. It is this fact that raised the query about the thirteen-year-old mother. From the time the child’s pregnancy was noted, the authorities should have intervened. A pregnancy is not something that is easily hidden.
Months have passed and no one has been charged. One excuse is that all such cases should be forwarded to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. We find this strange because the police know the law and once there is an infringement there should be prosecution. Surely, it cannot be that the police are incapable of instituting charges.
There are legal advisers to the Guyana Police Force. Further, there are many trained lawyers in the force and all are capable of instituting the appropriate charges. But this seems not to be the case and because of this, months have elapsed and no charges have been instituted against the individual who made the thirteen-year-old pregnant.
Instead, we are hearing that the perpetrator is a young man who has good intentions, that he proposes to marry the young woman and that his parents are taking care of the teen and her baby. That is beside the point in any criminal matter.
In these pages we read of a father who molested his two daughters, both very young. The shocking thing is that the molestation went on with the consent of the mother. For three years this happened in a small community and no one can say that it was a secret. In the end the police became involved as did the Child Welfare Department. The children have been removed from the home and the father is in custody.
But what is worrying is that a know accomplice—the mother—is allowed to walk free. And in the wake of the newspaper report, we now hear that the police are looking for another man who impregnated a thirteen-year-old as well as the girl who had joined the man in what can be described as a Bonnie and Clyde pact.
Some may argue that the police come from the same society in which child sex is fast becoming common and may be reluctant to act. However, law-abiding people would always call for harsh penalties. There is going to be a clash of conscience.

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