MP: Female crime victims need empathy, counselling

Since the beginning of this year, she said yesterday, quite an alarming number of young women comprise the statistic of 91 murders thus far. Rape and sexual assault on girls, particularly those under age 15, have been recorded. She said the manner in which some female victims have been murdered, such as in having their throats slit and stomachs disembowelled, wreaks the society’s psyche.

Gayadeen-Gopeesingh, an attorney, pointed out that when the bulk of the country’s resources in the form of budgetary allocations, is devoted to national security, “then we as a society has fundamental problems and we have to deal with it or we will soon become an animal society”. Some B10.5 billion has been allocated to National Security for the current period. Yet still the murders and mayhem is worsening.

Crimes against women, Gayadeen- Gopeesingh said, is rapidly becoming the norm and young girls falling victims to sexual predators is a constant threat. “Almost every day you hear of females who are victims of assault and violence.

It happening in the schools. Teachers seduce schoolgirls and police officers, soldiers, taxi drivers are taking advantage of young women who are vulnerable due to their immaturity.

“Young women, desperate to find work or trying to reach their destination after work are being abused. Even in the matrimonial home there is abuse as men believe it is their right to be abusive to their wives,” the well-spoken MP, alluding to the unstated view among certain men that women are basically their ‘property’.

“Women must not be blamed for the attitudes of men. They must not be blamed for socialisation into submissiveness which also is a retention from some patterns of our ancestral cultures. Therefore, we have much to do, distinct from (Prime Minister Dr Keith) Rowley’s suggestions which confirm a set of simplistic prejudices that may even incite violence, as it suggests the woman, ‘look for that’,” she said.

Gayadeen-Gopeesingh told Newsday that given the volume of crime against women, Government must as a matter of priority, reach out to victims who are in need of empathy, counselling and financial support. On the other hand, perpetrators need therapy and need to knew they will be brought to justice expeditiously through a proper functioning criminal justice system.

Taking issue with PM Rowley’s recent statements that women should choose their men wisely, Gayadeen-Gopeesingh said that young school girls and children have no choice in the matter to avoid sexual violence at home. In fact, the parliamentarian said, t such statements ignore what she describes as the evolutionary, cultural and psychological factors that research has shown, are part of the cause of violence against the female.