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May 11, 2019 Letters
DEAR EDITOR,
In the Kaieteur News of 23rd April 2019, under the caption “Woman alleges physical abuse by ranks at Parika Police Station,” we are given a most disgusting account of a sister’s experience at a police station.
According to the report, the alleged victim visited the station to make a report when a rank there “slammed a steel gate on her wrist.” Then with seeming contempt, he invited her to spank him on his buttocks. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated show of disrespect for females by the police in recent times.
In the Kaieteur News of 28th July 2017, we read that Tilawattie Singh was allegedly severely beaten by the police. In her words “me hold meh head and me ah beg dem, “Ow officer, wha meh do? Wha meh do?” And “I was bleeding when dem people put me in the lock-up and these people even refused to give me sanitary pads, even though I told them I was bleeding.”
In the Guyana Times of 4th November 2018, an article captioned “Woman placed to sleep naked in Police lockups,” we are told the cell was devoid of a bed and so she had to sleep on the concrete. She added that she was “helpless as several male officers came and looked at her without any clothing….”
While all three of the incidents mentioned above should make us all feel a sense of outrage and shame that such things could be happening to our women at our police stations, it’s the latter two to which I want to direct my attention.
Women tend to suffer more injustice at the hands of the police when they are placed in holding cells, and on remand, than their male counterparts. This is simply so because their biological make up means that they have some specific needs that must be catered for.
Indeed, one writer looking at how women on remand are treated in Zimbabwe was forced to remind that, “failure to provide the means to manage menstruation in remand and holding cells punishes women because of their biological make up.”
Failure to cater for these specific needs of women in detention is a violation of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. That rule states “no person under any form of detention or imprisonment shall be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Not to provide women in police custody with the materials and conditions for taking care of their biological demands, and placing them naked in cells, certainly qualify as ‘degrading treatment.’
What disappoints most is what seems to be a state of national apathy on this matter. When these despicable acts are made public, the upper echelon of the police assures us that investigations are being undertaken. However the findings are rarely publicized or found to be inadequate when shared with the public. Similarly, the various women and religious organizations, who one would think would be livid, are rarely heard from on this issue.
Something needs to be done to hold the police accountable and to reduce the possibility for these acts to be perpetuated.
Fortunately, we can easily find help in this matter. In 2018, a watchdog organization offered some suggestions for responding to this barbaric treatment of women in police custody, that plagues both rich and poor countries.
Guided by some of these suggestions, I make the following recommendations that seem most suitable for the Guyana situation:
1) The Commission on Women needs to become fully involved in this issue of how women are treated at police stations.
2) The Commission must have representatives throughout Guyana, who must be contacted, by the police station in their vicinity, whenever a woman is to be detained for over six hours.
3) The Commission must be given the authority and responsibility to visit and monitor women who are being held in custody by the police.
4) This authority must enable them to visit such women at any hour of the day or night.
5) All police stations with holding facilities for women must have at least one female officer on duty at every shift.
6) All police stations with holding facilities for females must have in stock hygiene packs and regular sanitary products for use by female detainees.
7) All police stations with holding facilities for females must also have proper facilities for the healthy disposal of such products.
Let us remember, whether we care to admit it or not, in CARICOM countries our women are seen as the custodians of our decency, our values. To disrespect and shame our women in this manner is to undermine our sense of decency, our virtue.
Yours,
Claudius Prince
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