In This South American Nation, Rapes of Women, Young Girls, and Migrants are Rampant

Oct 27, 2024 News

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By Nazima Raghubir

Kaieteur News – Victims Often Abandon Their Quest To Put Rapists Behind Bars; Police Are Slow To Act

Clad in all black, the teary-eyed woman could barely compose herself in the witness box of Guyana’s High Court. The mother of the rape survivor was confronting her child’s rapist once again, this time to read her daughter’s letter.

Fewer than a dozen people, including friends and family of both the survivor and the rapist, gathered in the Georgetown court for the sentencing. Oswald Bedlow, 37, was found guilty of raping a 15-year-old girl, the daughter of a family friend, in December 2022.

“I would never be able to trust anyone anymore after what Uncle Wally did to me,” the sobbing mother read.

Through her mother, the survivor said she remained traumatised, unable to trust and maintain relationships. The incident affected the entire family who, after she was raped, had to relocate to a new home.

Bedlow had taken her on a drive. He would rape and abandon her on the side of the road, telling her to find her way home. In 2020, Kaieteur News hailed Bedlow, then an ambulance driver, as “Frontline Worker of the Week.” In July 2024, Guyana Chronicle labeled him a rapist.

Sexual assaults on children are rampant in this South American nation. In 2020, Justice Peter Jamadar of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) described the underreporting of sexual offences involving children in Guyana as an “extremely disturbing trend.”

“If Guyana follows international norms in this regard for developing societies, such as those in the Caribbean, then, on the basis of presumed under-reporting, the problem likely assumes a magnitude that is endemic, pathological, and potentially destructive of the fabric of Guyanese society,” Jamadar said.

At the time, the CCJ was delivering judgment in the case of a 57-year-old father of 12, Linton Pompey, who was convicted on September 21, 2015 of three sexual offences against a 14-year-old girl.

When the courts opened in January 2024, the Demerara Assizes, which included Georgetown, had to resolve 259 total cases. Sexual offences constituted the overwhelming majority of them; 114 were rape charges; 23 involved sexual activity with a child family member and 1 defendant was charged with sexual activity with a child under sixteen.

Red Thread, a Georgetown-based non-profit organisation that advocates for women’s rights, has expressed concern about the alarming number of sexual violence cases before the courts. The body has faulted the policing system for making it difficult for survivors to come forward and to find justice.

Halima Khan is a counselor and advocate who accompanies survivors to police stations. She also provides in-person support in the courtroom. Khan spends some of her time reaching out to her “grassroots women network” seeking information about sexual assault in their communities. She also combs the newspapers and other mediums to identify cases.  Said Khan: “This is a difficult task, not only to track the survivors but to convince them to take a chance on the system, a system that does not seem to always work in their favour.”

“For decades we have seen one trend, sexual assault cases continue to climb,” she said. It could be that more people are [more sensitized] about sexual assault. This could be empowering for them.”

Khan described what she said was a “worrying” trend: police inability or reluctance to take reports of sexual assault, or to “go after” alleged perpetrators. Citing a case in Lethem, a township in Guyana’s Region 9 close to the border with Brazil, Halima related how police were often reluctant to look for the alleged perpetrator. “All we kept hearing is that we ain’t getting the man, we ain’t see the man and we had to tell them, we saw the man and gave them [his] car number,” Halima said.

The Guyana Police Force did not respond to repeated attempts for an interview with the Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network.

Victims of Sexual Assault Have to Wait and “Wait Again”

S, 22, was allegedly assaulted in December 2023. In August, 2024 the alleged perpetrator was yet to be charged. S related that she reported the assault to the Alberttown Police Station in December. S would not hear from the police until March when she was asked for a “follow-up” statement. “I am so anxious and frustrated,” S said. “It’s like every time I feel as if, okay we’re getting somewhere with the case, I have to wait again.”

S had to seek therapy, to deal with the trauma of the alleged assault and the trauma of waiting on the police. “I am always thinking, when are they going to call, how long do I have to wait.”

In July, Communications Officer Liz Rahaman with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, said S’s file was returned to the Guyana Police Force, citing sufficient evidence to charge the alleged perpetrator with two counts of sexual assault.

Migrant Women, Mainly Venezuelans, are Targeted by Rapists

Rape of migrant women, many of whom have fled instability in neighboring Venezuela, makes up a significant number of cases before the court.

*In 2019, Jamal Bumbury appeared in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court charged with raping a Venezuelan woman in Region 1.

*In September 2022, a Venezuelan woman was gang raped by four men.

*In September 2023, a Venezuelan sex worker was raped and murdered while working in a mining district in Region 7.

*In that same month, A pregnant Venezuelan woman was raped and sodomised during a job interview in Georgetown. The alleged perpetrator was never arrested despite being identified by the woman.

*On July 31, 2024, Guyana Times headline read “Venezuelan sex worker raped, strangled to death”. Miracarmen Rodrigues Serrano was killed in a mining district in Region 7. The alleged perpetrator was arrested.

C is a migrant living in Guyana for 4 years. The Spanish-speaking woman through a friend related that she relocated from Venezuela to find a job. In 2023, she was violently raped by someone she can identify. C explained that it was difficult to get the police to take her report. “She is seen as a sex worker, you know, because she is Spanish,” the friend said. “Now there is no report and nothing will ever happen.”

In a different matter, taxi driver Thurston Semple was sentenced to 11 years for raping a woman. Semple committed the act in February 2021 and was convicted in July 2022.  In her impact statement read to the court by her therapist, the mother of three explained that she traveled to Guyana to work and support her family in Venezuela. She explained too that the incident and beating changed her life, as she suffers nightmares, lives in fear and is depressed.

“I feel like I’m never going to get over this totally…it’s something that’s still hurting my mind…I cannot learn to forgive and forget,” the victim told the court.

Liz Rahaman, the communications officer at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the main challenge in prosecuting sexual offence matters was “getting complainants to testify in court.” Rahaman said in some matters the complainants “go all the way,” but in 7 out of 10 of those cases, victims would say, “I do not wish to proceed with the matter.”

Asked about accusations of the police foot dragging on reports and prosecution, Rahaman said: “That might be so. That is why the judiciary is placing emphasis on reducing the backlog of cases, with a priority on sexual offences.”

In July, when he handed down the sentence of Oswald Bedlow, Justice Sandil Kissoon cited  the CCJ’s concern that the number of sexual assault cases in Guyana was alarming. He said rape belonged in a class of offences that are heinous and that Bedlow abused his position of trust and caused pain and suffering to the survivor and her family.

Said Kissoon: “This is an offence of rape. This is an offence against the state.”

Editor’s note: This article was first published by the Caribbean Investigative Journalism Network (CIJN) on October 3, 2024

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• Alberttown Police Station, Caribbean Investigative, Guyana Police Force, Public Prosecutions, Targeted by Rapists

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