Police struggling to bring rape suspects to justice in Region One

Nov 23, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Region One Commander, Superintendent of Police, Boodnarine Persaud, during last week Tuesday’s edition of the weekly, “Police and You” programme said, ranks in the region are experiencing ‘trouble’ bringing suspects accused of statutory rape, to justice.

Superintendent of Police, Boodnarine Persaud

Persaud noted that most of these cases are only reported when pregnancy occurs. The Commander said these incidents occur more within the Amerindian settlements and acknowledged a 240 percent increase in reported cases within the Region.
According to Superintendent Persaud, the Region this year recorded 48 complaints, against the 14 that were recorded for last year.
Of the 48 complaints received, there was only one specified incident of forced rape, which involved a Venezuelan migrant, who is still on the run and no arrest has been made because of lack of information received.
According to Persaud, members of the Force recently visited an Amerindian settlement, where they received five reports of rape but the information was not thorough enough.
As such, only one suspect was named but according to reports, the accused has since left the village, and the victim of that matter already had two children.
Persaud stated that when these cases are reported, sometimes the victims give information like, “I know he’s from Georgetown…a dougla bai from Georgetown”, were among some of the vague reports received which according to Persaud, is not enough for the police to conduct an investigation.
Commander Persaud related that the Force has conducted several sensitisation programmes to educate the community members.
During the Guyana Police Force’s Christmas Anti-Crime Presentation, Crime Chief, Wendell Blanhum, had outlined that the Force recorded 55.8 percent overall increase in rape cases for the year thus far, when compared to the number of recorded cases last year.
According to statistics provided, the Force recorded 163 rape cases in 2020 and 254 cases.

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