From Where I Stand… Laws Alone Will Not Protect Women

Sep 14, 2025 Features / Columnists, News

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By Janelle Persaud

Kaieteur News – Some days, the newspaper reads like an obituary for women in Guyana. Acid. Bullets. Rape. Violence. It has become such a routine headline that we risk forgetting: these are not mere stories—they are daughters, mothers, sisters.

On September 7, 2025, Kaieteur News’ front page carried three such stories: “Two women doused with acid,” “Girl, 15, allegedly raped by taxi drivers,” and “Lola Doll shot multiple times outside her home.” All in a single day’s news cycle. You’d be inclined to think of this as exceptional but it is fact a sad and unacceptable norm.

Around the same time, I saw a Facebook post from a friend that has lingered with me. She wrote: “At this stage in my life, remaining single is not a matter of preference alone, but of rational self-preservation.” To read that coming from a woman and a single mother at that, is frightening. It speaks to a reality in which companionship is no longer simply a choice, but a gamble with life and safety. Her words ended with a chilling truth: “Not all men, but still, men.”

And she is not exaggerating. According to the Guyana Standard, in 2025 alone, domestic violence perpetrators have already killed 15 women. That’s fifteen names. Fifteen families shattered. Among them: Kenesha Vaughn, Bibi Salima Persaud, Jenel Polydore, and Teekadai Atiya Solomon. This is a testimony to a country that has failed to protect its women.

The numbers are sobering. Guyana records one of the highest femicide rates in Latin America and the Caribbean (8.8 per 100,000 women). More than half of women who have ever been in a relationship report experiencing intimate partner violence, and nearly 40% say they have endured physical or sexual violence. One in five women has suffered sexual abuse outside of a relationship, with many reporting their first experience before the age of 18.

The data alone should be enough to alarm us. Yet it is not the numbers but what they reveal; a culture of impunity, institutions that bend, and leaders who respond piecemeal. This makes women’s safety so precarious in Guyana.

Speaking of justice delayed and denied, ask the family of Kenesha Vaughn. She was murdered by her partner, Marlan Da Silva, and yet her case drags on; adjourned, postponed, pushed back again and again. Many believe his family’s wealth and influence help shield him. What does that tell other women? That justice in Guyana depends less on truth and more on who your abuser is.

And Kenesha is not alone. I know of women who went to the police trembling, only to be asked: “You really want to carry this matter further?” Not because there was no evidence but because the perpetrator had already intervened, with money, connections, or quiet influence. Yes, there have been training programmes for police officers, but workshops alone cannot undo culture.

It shows up outside the institutions too. During election season, a female presidential candidate was mocked online with a cartoon of her body tied to a pole, posted by someone often seen alongside the Vice President. That kind of dehumanisation of women in public life feeds the same culture that excuses their abuse in private. And it goes beyond gender. The way we treat each other in this country; the insults, the crass commentary, the cruelty all reflects the same aggression which we see in our homes and schools.

And it starts early. I was standing outside my niece’s school two days ago and watched children barely out of kindergarten hitting each other with startling aggression. One might want to say that’s just “kids being kids.” However, research shows that where children are raised in systems that normalise beating, humiliation, and control in homes, in schools, and in policing, they grow up more likely to accept violence as normal. These patterns are not new. They were inherited from colonial systems designed to discipline and dominate instead of to nurture and protect. Over time, we absorbed them into our institutions and daily lives, until violence became the language of power.

I listened to VP Jagdeo declare recently that “domestic violence has no place in Guyana.” He is right. But the State’s responses remain piecemeal: a hotline here, a campaign there, another bill in Parliament. And this is where leadership matters most. What we are really lacking is the intentional leadership to ensure that laws are enforced, resourced, and backed by strategies deeper than hotlines and slogans. Without that will from the top, even the strongest laws remain paper promises.

Because on paper, we are strong. The Family Violence Act, 2024 replaced the 1996 Domestic Violence Act, expanding protections to cover psychological and economic abuse and making it easier to secure protection orders. The Matrimonial Causes (Amendment) Act, 2024 modernises divorce law, allowing irreconcilable differences as a ground and giving either spouse the right to seek maintenance. These are progressive steps. But they will mean little if the police discourage reporting, if courts delay justice, and if society treats cruelty as entertainment.

What we need is recognition that the disease is deeper. And from there, the courage to design solutions that are broader:

• Education that teaches respect and consent, not just academics.
• Faith and community leaders who use their platforms to model healthier relationships.
• Police and courts that enforce the law fairly and quickly, without fear or favour.
• Government and civil society working together on sustained, community-based support not just one-off fixes.

None of this is easy. But until we face violence as systemic and not merely random or private, we will keep writing obituaries instead of changing outcomes.

From where I stand, laws alone will not protect women. What will protect women is when leaders, institutions, and communities finally decide that violence in all its forms, from the home to the State really and truly has no place here, and then act like we mean it.

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• acid attack, Janelle Persaud, Protect Women, rape, violence, Women abuse

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