Editorial Domestic violence
Despite being on the front burner in terms of advocacy by social activists and the relevant government agencies, there seems to be no positive change in terms of the incidence of domestic violence across Guyana. Indeed, in recent days there seems to have been an unpleasant spike in the number of reported incidents, leaving us to ponder on the efficacy of the measures being taken to reduce this continuing scourge affecting our families.
At a seminar tackling domestic abuse sponsored by the Supreme Court of Judicature in collaboration with the Commonwealth Secretariat a year ago, President David Granger advocated a studied approach to domestic violence, suggesting that its eradication requires a careful study of the causes. He noted that while the law can punish persons for their actions, it does so after the fact and thus is not necessarily preventative. His analysis also factored in the imbalance of power between parties in a relationship and the fact that domestic violence is likely to flourish in unequal relationships.
Though critical, this primary approach to studying causation takes time, the sort of time that victims of violence unfortunately don’t have, as can be seen from the almost daily headlines chronicling the murder and maiming of mostly women across the country.
The experts and stakeholders alike all agree that the incidents of domestic violence need to be carefully studied and placed in an overall societal context. This process will, of necessity, involve the police investigators and require the collection and sharing of data with the relevant agencies tasked with undertaking such a study. For certain there is no shortage of cases historically, and new ones seem to be occurring with disturbing regularity. What is likely missing at the moment is any serious studied implementation of the President’s recommendations, or musings on the issue.
In the interim, however, there is still need for a carefully considered, stop gap, short term approach to reducing the incidence of domestic violence that takes into consideration the measures currently in place and determining which ones are failing or are being poorly executed in order to force the necessary improvements.
The statistics on domestic violence in Guyana are staggering for a country with a population of less than a million persons. On an annual basis domestic violence reports