By Nathan 'Jolly' Green

During
the last eighteen years, the Caribbean paradise state of Saint
Vincent and the Grenadines has become a living hell for women. Rape
and molestation accompanied by the brutality of beatings, torture,
and murder have become so commonplace in the mainland island of Saint
Vincent that almost daily news reports of ever worse circumstances
appear.

The
situation is out of control, and the politicians in power are doing
almost nothing to relieve the condition. The opposition party is
trying hard, but they are not in power and are limited in what they
can do.

Among
the latest cases and reports are of a nurse who is a mother being
shot dead by her husband at her son's school where she had gone to
collect him. Shot in the head and cradled in the arms of her young
son before being taken to the hospital and pronounced dead. The
public is calling for "a thorough investigation" into how
the police responded to Arianna Taylor-Israel's complaints that her
life was threatened before she was shot and killed. Friends say she
had complained twenty-eight times to the police that her husband had
threatened her life, the police say it was just three. Twenty-eight
or three, the police took no action whatsoever regarding the woman's
complaints. None action by the Vincentian police is pretty standard
and holds back even more women complaining to them. The police have
an ongoing history of doing nothing to help women, especially when
there is a political conection.

For
years now, women have complained that when they go to a police
station, officers tell them to go home and behave themselves. They
have even been laughed and jeered at when trying to complain
formally. Women are asked questions in the outer public office
instead of being asked within the confines of an interview room.

Little
of this went on twenty years ago. Still, Saint Vincent in 2007, had
the third-highest rate of recorded rapes after the Bahamas and
Swaziland, according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
document cited by the report. UN statistics showed that in 2011, St.
Vincent was the fourth-worst country worldwide when it came to its
rate of recorded rapes. Between 2000 and 2011, 60 women died from
gender-based violence or at the hands of their partner — a
staggering figure considering the gross under-reporting of cases and
St. Vincent’s tiny 2011 population of 109,400. Université du
Québec à Montréal’s International Clinic for the Defence of
Human Rights and the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Human Rights
Association. “In response to this cultural epidemic, the state of
St. Vincent and the Grenadines does not provide adequate protection
to women.” During that period, more than 4,490 Vincentians — four
percent of the current population — sought asylum in Canada, the
majority being women. Vincentian women were seeking asylum, and court
documents suggest that almost all were fleeing violence. When abuse
does occur, the woman’s quest for justice often ends at the police
station. Under St. Vincent’s Domestic Violence Act — which
considers domestic abuse a civil matter, not a criminal one —
police are not even legally obligated to investigate. According to a
report of that time by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board.
Although officers receive gender-sensitivity training, victims are
often met with “gross, disrespectful, chauvinistic, young male
police officers who feel that the victim asked for what she
received.”

2020,
Jan. 4 attack on Vincentian resident, Monique Hutchins, who was
beaten in the face with a hammer, allegedly by a former lover.

2020,
Jan. 29, a voice note was circulated via social media, in which a
woman pleaded with a man to stop beating her, as he threatened to
kill her in a vehicle.

2020,
Jan. 29, photos and voice messages began circulating on social media,
this time, surrounding the brutal chopping in the face with a sharp
cutlass of a Vincentian woman, allegedly by two other female
villagers.

Rape
is such a problem, little girls as young as five years, and great
grandmothers as old as eighty-five have been raped. Women raped on
beaches after dark or walking home from work, no woman or child is
safe anywhere at any time of the night or day.

Like
all crime, there is a need to be tough; it is essential that strict
punishment is not just administered, but is seen to be tough.
Unfortunately, judges and magistrates are not tough on almost any
crime in SVG. The prisons are overflowing, including a massive state
of art prison built by the current administration — cells built for
two house ten, if they imprison more, where will they put them.

But
there lies another problem because the Prime Minister of St. Vincent,
Dr. Ralph E Gonsalves, has also been accused of rape and other sex
crimes against women. Not just one or two women but untold numbers of
women. Yet not one of the complaints has ever resulted in a court
case. The allegations included rape, and one such alleged crime
resulted in a charge being brought against Gonsalves. Yet still, this
man has never appeared before a court to face any of his accusers or
address their allegations there.

You can be sure some of the readers of this article will be astounded that such things can be reported and no conclusive action resulting in a court appearance has ever taken place. Ralph Gonsalves besides being the Prime Minister is also the Minister National Security, Grenadines Affairs and Legal Affairs. He is an ex lawyer and is in charge of the police. “One of the accusations is from 40 years ago,” the brutish prime minister told a confidant.

Dr.
Ralph E Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

“What
do they want from me? I have been elected with more votes each time
since 2001 — I am a hero, statesman, and savour of my beloved
country.”

A
leading Caribbean writer Nathan ‘Jolly’ Green recently wrote ­­–

There is a rape culture in SVG; even PM Ralph Gonsalves has been accused and charged with sex crimes. Vincentian police have had 20 years to act and have done nothing regarding looking into the allegations against him. The danger to woman is also a deterrent to tourism which perhaps is why the mainland island of Saint Vincent has the fewest tourists of all the developed islands in the Caribbean.

END

IMAGES: Supplied by author

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