When does a quarrel escalate to verbal abuse?

Oct 30, 2022 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Did Charandas Persaud (CP) commit an offence against the women to whom he used insulting obscene words during an altercation one year ago? If he did, then thousands of Guyanese should be hauled before the Courts and charged for verbal abuse, sexual or otherwise.

You can walk through many streets in Guyana in the early mornings and be serenaded by the most obscene of languages. Neighbours go at each other in verbal jousts using the most colorful and profane of language.

One of the seriously overlooked problems in our society is the abuse to which some of our children suffer each day. In many villages in Guyana, children are aroused early in the mornings. And often the first words which they hear from their parents are insults about them, not waking up early, and how they are no good.

Many children are forced to do chores soon after they awake. Some of them have to sweep the yard, water the plants, attend to livestock and assigned all manner of work before readying themselves for school.  While they are trying to finish these chores they are constantly greeted with profanities and insults. All it will take is for the authorities to take a walk through some of our villages early in the morning to understand the abuse which our children are forced to endure.

But do you hear the haters of CP address their minds to protecting our children from the daily insults and cursing to which they are subjected? Does this not amount to abuse under our Domestic Violence Act?

Under the Domestic Violence Act, verbal abuse is an offence but in respect to harassment. This means that the insulting words must not be due to a mere quarrel but most be persistent and aimed at intimidating the victim.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, there is a difference between a quarrel and abuse. Moving from giving someone’s your impression or opinion of them to repeatedly using hurtful or insulting words against them, is when a quarrel can escalate to abuse.

The Indian authorities, reportedly, did not find that CP committed abuse. It would not have mattered if they did because he enjoys diplomatic immunity. But it would have mattered in terms of those who are now claiming that he committed verbal abuse and verbal sexual abuse.

It should also be noted that in the incident involving CP, he was called a “bastard” But the haters are not deeming this as abuse.

Most definitions of verbal abuse tend to stress that it is not a one-off act but something that occurs as a result of repeated use of insulting, obscene and demeaning language.

The Criminal Offences Act of Guyana does create an offence of verbal abuse but it does this first in relation to breach of the peace and then to a general offence involving the use of obscene, profane or insulting language in any place. If persons in Guyana were to be every charged for using insulting language in any place in Guyana, the jails would be overflowing.

The haters of CP want him to be punished. And the main reason why his haters want him sanctioned is revenge: they want to get back at him for daring to vote with the Opposition on the no-confidence motion in December 2018.

There is a difference between actions which break the law and those who are improper. There is no doubt that the feral blast committed by CP, whether provoked, or not was highly improper and not in keeping with the refinement and decorum expected of the country’s diplomats. But this idea that what was said constituted sexual verbal abuse is disputable.

The Sexual Offences Act of Guyana does not speak to verbal abuse or verbal sexual abuse. The Domestic Violence Act of Guyana includes verbal abuse as a part of domestic violence. It defines harassment as including persistent verbal abuse. It would appear that one-off quarrels in which insults are hurled would not qualify as constituting domestic violence. There has to be a persistent pattern of such behavior.

That piece of legislation provides protecting for the verbal and consequential psychological abuse suffered by many of our children in the homes. But how many cases do you see appearing in our court indicting parents for the daily litany of insults and humiliation which they visit on our children?

CP lost did something which one would not usually associate with him. He lost his cool and made terrible obscene and profane remarks to a woman. He did not commit sexual abuse – verbal or otherwise – in so doing. But he has paid a price for his outburst.

Each day there are women, women and children who are subject to a litany of verbal abuse in their homes and some even outside of their. They too are paying a price in terms of their mental help.  But do not tell that to the haters!

(The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not this newspaper.)

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