Young mom raped at gunpoint …then roughed up in quest for justice –I asked him (the police doctor) for an injection to protect me from STDs, and he turned and said: ‘That is white people stupidness!’

AFTER being aroused out of sleep to be robbed and brutally raped at gunpoint by two men, a young mother is left to wonder if she has been singled out for punishment, encountering embarrassing ordeals and rejection at the hands of two different police offices, and being stalked by an unfamiliar group of young men.

She fears for her life, having suspicions that three male stalkers who turned up in front of her home and appeared to capture her on video camera are accomplices of her assailants.

The 26-year-old was in bed with her two children when a gun-toting duo entered her Diamond, East Bank Demerara home, after removing panes from a louvre window. They robbed her of cash, jewellery, a computer and a cell phone, and then took turns at raping her. Seemingly in their early twenties, the men were unmasked, and used no contraceptive; and the young woman is now left with haunting questions concerning her health.

It happened at about 04:00 hrs, when she was awakened from sleep by the feel of something cold on her forehead. Believing that it was an insect, she tried to brush it away. But soon realising something was amiss, she opened her eyes — only to discover two men standing by her bed, one holding a gun to her head.

Speechless with fear, the woman recalled being ordered to get off the bed and pass over jewellery, cash and a cell phone. She handed over approximately $50,000 cash, five gold rings, three gold bands, a Dell laptop computer and a cellular phone, all valued at over $500,000. Her children, aged nine and five respectively, were at the time asleep on the same bed.

The woman recalled that, after handing over the cash and jewellery, the men asked her to screw out a flat screen television from the table; and while she attempted to unscrew the television set, one of the robbers ordered her to quit because he had a “better” idea.

“He said ‘go and screw the TV off the TV stand’, and I couldn’t screw it off. Then he looked down at me.” The visibly traumatised woman said the man made a pejorative remark which suggested that they should rape her instead. She was then ordered at gunpoint to take off her underwear and lie on the bed, and the men took turns at raping her. The woman recalled that she started screaming, and her landlord called out to ask her if she was alright. She said one of the gunmen ordered her to “say something good”.

“I told him, ‘Yes, I am alright’, because at the time the gun was in my back and I couldn’t tell him anything else… He asked what happened to the window, and I told him I took it out.”

The young woman said she thought the landlord would have observed that something was wrong and call for help, but the man quietly returned upstairs. For about an hour, the helpless woman endured the fearful torment in stillness and tears, but made a final alarm at dawn as the predators made good their escape over the back fence.

ATTEMPTED CHASE
The young woman said her landlord attempted to chase the predators with his car, but the men vanished. The police were contacted, and officers from the Criminal Investigation Department who were on patrol responded quickly. The young woman said she asked the officers to accompany her to the doctor, but was told that they were tired because they had worked all night. The police left without taking a statement, or even inviting her to the station to make a formal report.

Her landlord eventually drove her to the Brickdam Police Station in Georgetown, and requested the rape kit. When one of the policewomen responded that they all were tired, she was taken to a police doctor stationed in an office within the very compound.

The young woman said the male doctor, to whom she was taken by one of the policewomen, handled her in a rough manner, even pulling her hair during a physical examination. “He was swabbing me, and when I cried because I was feeling pain, he said in a rough manner: “Is not a penis I swabbing you with!” The young woman said she felt embarrassed because the two female officers never objected to his remark, and they were also called to view the bruises she had sustained while being raped.

“I asked him (the police doctor) for an injection to protect me from STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), and he turned and said, “That is white-people stupidness”, the distraught woman complained.

A drive back to the Golden Grove Police Station ran her into verbal abuse by an officer there, whose name was given to her. After relating to the officer what had happened back home earlier, the young woman said, “He asked me how I open my foot, and I told him the man opened it, and he telling me that I had enough strength to close my foot,” the woman lamented.

ID PARADE
She was told to report at the station last Monday morning at about 07:00hrs for an identification parade, but was greeted by another officer who was quarrelsome towards her at the time. He asked her to wait until the investigating rank had reported, and after that police had turned up at about 09:00hrs, she was only told that the ID parade had been rescheduled for 16:00hrs. A time was eventually fixed for later that evening because she had to do routine parental duties around that time.

At about 19:00hrs, she pointed out one of her assailants to the police, but the policeman informed her that he would be able to charge the man only for “break and enter and larceny”. He said the rape charge would be prepared at Brickdam Police Station instead. She never left the station until after 21:00hrs.

Meanwhile, The woman said that on Sunday last, while she was doing the laundry in her yard, she observed three men on bicycles pointing a video camera at her for a while. She said she called out to her mother and fainted, hurting her hand and leg, and was later told that the men had ridden away. She later reported that incident to the police; and after seeking help from an aunt, she was directed to the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO), which has since moved to help her seek justice.

GWMO President Urica Primus said her organisation, which originally assisted women trapped in various forms of exploitation in hinterland areas and mining districts in Guyana, is challenged with dealing with women even on the coastal plain and in other regions. She said several women and girls who are victims of abuse and exploitation have complained that they are given little or no needed assistance when they approach the relevant authorities, and even suffer further abuse and rejection.

“We cannot turn women away when they are faced with such calamity,” Primus has stated. (First printed in last Wednesday’s edition of the Chronicle; reprinted here for our Sunday readers)

By Shauna Jemmott