No more fear; Rape victims coming forward

Sunday, February 12, 2012

MORE victims of rape and other sexual offences are coming forward to report these crimes.

This turn of events is in stark contrast to what existed up to two years ago when some Jamaicans, particularly girls and women from inner city communities controlled by dons, were afraid of the vicious reprisals that would be meted out to anyone who filed such reports to the police.

The arm of the police force that has been established to probe sexual offences and child abuse has reported that more victims — both in urban and rural Jamaican communities — are taking steps to ensure that the perpetrators of such crimes are brought to justice.

"A lot of persons are coming forward now more than ever to report carnal abuse and rape, which is one of the reasons why we have seen the increase in the reported cases of rapes for last year," said head of the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA), Superintendent Gladys Brown-Campbell.

"We have more sensitisation programmes going around and people are less fearful now," she said.

While not prepared to divulge the current figures to the Sunday Observer, in keeping with strict Jamaica Constabulary Force protocol, Brown-Campbell attributed the development to the fact that people are no longer afraid of dons.

She said this may be due to the fact that many of these community leaders who traditionally control their community through fear, are being rounded up by the security forces in the campaign which began with the Tivoli Gardens operation in May 2010, mounted in an effort to apprehend accused crime lord Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

Based on figures released by the police for last year, 748 rapes were reported, 44 more than the 704 cases tallied by the police for 2010. However, 78 fewer cases of carnal abuse were recorded between January 1 and December 31 last year when compared to the corresponding period for 2010.

Despite at least two recent reports of school employees being charged for committing sexual offences against students, Brown-Campbell has commended guidance counsellors and school principals who she says have been coming forward with information on various offences.

"More children are coming to the guidance counsellors to report, because the guidance counsellors are now doing their educational programmes in schools too, and saying that if anybody touches you, it's an offence," she added, highlighting the existence of the new sexual offences act, which criminalises acts such as inappropriate touching. The 2009 legislation replaced the Incest Punishment Act and provides stricter penalties for certain offences which were dealt with by the Offences Against the Person Act, including rape and sexual assault.

The police superintendent also indicated that various other initiatives have been bearing fruit.

"We are using a multi-agency approach that came on stream last year with the Victims Support Unit. We have the Office of the Children's Registry, we have the Office of the Children's Advocate, and the other agencies, as well as the counsellors at the schools. We have a one-stop clinic at CISOCA, where we have an in-house guidance counsellor and a justice of the peace on spot to write our summonses when we need to go arrest somebody," said Brown-Campbell.

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No more fear; Rape victims coming forward