Brutal Matthews Ridge rape…Human rights body condemns action of police, medical officials

The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has strongly criticized the manner in which the police and medical officials in Matthews Ridge have handled the case involving an Amerindian woman who was raped in her home by an intruder last week Tuesday.
The local human rights body is issuing a call for concerted and urgent action, both from the Ministry of Health and the Guyana Police Force to ensure that a more professional and realistic response to allegations of sexual assault is adopted in hinterland areas.
“There is clearly also a sense of impunity developing in hinterland areas, whereby perpetrators of sexual offences believe themselves to be beyond the reach of the law,” the body said in a release yesterday.
In fact, the GHRA noted that this was not the first instance of sexual assault where an unacceptable response was garnered from the police and medical officials.
It said that the case of the 55-year-old woman in Matthews Ridge, North-West District was made public merely a few days after an allegation of sexual assault of a young Amerindian hotel worker in Mahdia was similarly reduced to physical assault.
The body complained that neither the police nor the medical staff at the Pakera Hospital investigated allegations of sexual assault made by the elderly woman “because she could not narrate the story as clearly as they would have liked.”
The woman had sustained a speech impediment since she suffered a stroke about eighteen months ago, GHRA explained.
“Despite torn underwear, as well as the presence of relatives and friends capable of understanding what the woman says, the police and doctor focused entirely on physical assault. The police also claim she did not complain of rape,” the non-governmental organisation said.
GHRA further disclosed that the members of the family and community are angered by the police and medical responses to the incident.
“In the first place, it was handled entirely by male police and male medical staff when there are female police and medics available in the community. The hospital, the GHRA was informed, did not perform any examination for sexual assault because the victim only complained of a physical assault.”
GHRA said it is alleged that the woman “never got to tell her story properly because the policeman in charge of the station was more interested in questioning her about her life history, asking her some questions she wasn’t able to answer, and loudly talked her down when she tried to talk about the rape.”
The body said that it was informed by relatives that “you don’t need a sign language interpreter to understand her; lots of people who know her can tell what she is saying.”
According to GHRA, following publication of the case in Kaieteur News’ September 30 Edition, a detective appointed to re-investigate has ordered the female relative most active in pursuing the case not to revisit the police station or the hospital and instituted a male relative as the main interlocutor for the victim.
The human rights body explained that the suspected perpetrator is well-known to the victim and she took the police to his home.
GHRA lamented that the disability dimension of this case should be a cause of serious concern.
“The inability of a person to speak clearly by reason of disability cannot be an excuse for not taking action on what they allege.”
The NGO said that while more formal arrangements may be required for court proceedings, the police cannot demand similar standards in order to pursue investigations.
“In both the Mahdia case and this case, circumstantial evidence pointed clearly to the need to examine and investigate for sexual assault.  The unavailability of rape kits is no excuse for not doing so.”
GHRA also reported that there is widespread indignation, at least among females in the community which is being fuelled by the growing number of sexual assaults in the area. The much publicized case of a young woman sexually assaulted and murdered, whose body was found in bushes and nothing has come of it, was one instance highlighted by GHRA.
The human rights body said that the women also complained that “within a day’s walk of Matthews Ridge, miners from the coast have virtually taken over some small villages, where they wait till parents get drunk then prey on girls as young as seven years old.
According to the GHRA, the clamour that “no one here is responsible for Amerindians” was a further echo of Mahdia.
The 55-year-old woman was last week rushed to the Pakera Public Hospital, Matthews Ridge, after she reported that she was sexually molested in her bed by an intruder. The incident occurred around 20:30 hours last week Tuesday at the woman’s home at Flats, Matthews Ridge.
One of her relatives explained that one of her son’s friends sneaked into her house, beat her, and had sexual intercourse with her. The relative said that the woman explained that the ordeal lasted for about 30 minutes.