Ann Marie Bisses­sar

There is no doubt about it–rape is one of the dirt­i­est deeds in the world.Rape, as we know it, is as old as civil­i­sa­tion it­self. While the com­mon de­f­i­n­i­tions of­fered for rape is that it is sex­u­al in­ter­course/tak­ing by force/pen­e­tra­tion, ini­ti­at­ed by one or more peo­ple against an­oth­er per­son with­out that per­son's con­sent, this is a cut-and�dried de­f­i­n­i­tion that fails to re­al­ly re­lay the phys­i­cal and men­tal scar­ring that ac­com­pa­nies it.While we do know that in all the re­port­ed in­ci­dents of rape, sex­u­al in­ter­course is car­ried out by phys­i­cal force, co­er­cion, and abuse of au­thor­i­ty that by it­self fails to al­so ad­dress the men­tal agony and the stig­ma that is as­so­ci­at­ed with the vic­tim.

What is ev­i­dent, though, is that in near­ly all coun­tries of the world, re­port­ed in­ci­dents of rape have been in­creas­ing rapid­ly. In­ter­net sta­tis­tics re­veal, for in­stance, that in­ter­na­tion­al­ly the in­ci­dence of rapes record­ed by the po­lice dur­ing the year 2010 var­ied be­tween 0.2 in Azer­bai­jan per 100,000 peo­ple, and 92.9 per 100,000 peo­ple in Botswana, with 6.3 per 100,000 peo­ple in Lithua­nia as the me­di­an. What is sur­pris­ing, though, is that the coun­try that ranks first for the high­est re­port­ed in­ci­dence of rape is the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. In 2011, for in­stance, 83,425 cas­es of rape were re­port­ed. In­deed, it is al­leged that in that coun­try every 6.2 min­utes a woman is raped.In the Caribbean, too, we are not free from the scourge of rape. In­deed, 48 per cent of Caribbean girls who have had sex re­port­ed that their first en­counter was "forced," in oth­er words, they were more or less raped. Sources have al­so cit­ed a Unit­ed Na­tions/World Bank re­port show­ing that the Caribbean has three of the top ten record­ed rape rates in the world.

Ac­cord­ing to this re­port, the coun­try that tops the list is the Ba­hamas, where the num­ber of re­port­ed rapes is al­most 15 times high­er than most coun­tries. Two oth­er coun­tries that have ranked in the top ten are St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Ja­maica. In Ja­maica, in 1989, there were 1,032 re­port­ed cas­es of rape and car­nal abuse. This fig­ure rose to 1,297 in 1993.Thir­ty-eight per cent of these vic­tims in Ja­maica in 1993 were be­tween the ages of 18 and 25, and 44 per cent of the cas­es were in re­la­tion to car­nal abuse of girls un­der 16 (tak­en from Vi­o­lence against women in the Caribbean State and Non-State Re­sponse, Unifem, 1998).Po­lice sta­tis­tics for T&T for 1991 show that a woman is raped every 1.75 days. (As of Jan­u­ary 2014, there have been a to­tal of 39 re­port­ed cas­es of rape in this coun­try.) While there were 142 re­ports of rape in 1985, on­ly 48 per cent re­sult­ed in the lay­ing of crim­i­nal charges. No con­vic­tions of rape were re­port­ed in that year. This dis­par­i­ty is al­so ob­served for 1989 when there were 239 cas­es of rape re­port­ed, 146 (61 per cent) of which re­sult­ed in charges of rape be­ing laid. In that year, on­ly ten con­vic­tions were record­ed.Sim­i­lar trends are ob­serv­able for Bar­ba­dos and Guyana. Sta­tis­tics for Bar­ba­dos show that in 1989, 64 re­ports of rape were record­ed, 28 charges (43 per cent) were laid and there were no con­vic­tions. In Guyana for the year 1988, 73 re­ports of rape were made and 39 charges (53 per cent) of rape were laid.

Date rapes­si­lent voic­es

How­ev­er, it should be not­ed that these are the cas­es that were ac­tu­al­ly re­port­ed. Many cas­es go un­re­port­ed for a num­ber of rea­sons. For in­stance, in many uni­ver­si­ties or or­gan­i­sa­tions which have halls of res­i­dence there have been in­ci­dents of what is com­mon­ly known as "date rapes."In all the cit­ed cas­es, the young women knew their at­tack­er and were of­ten on friend­ly terms with him. In most of the cas­es, the rape oc­curred ei­ther in the fe­male's apart­ment or in the male's apart­ment. In many cas­es, it was a sleep­over or a study-group ses­sion. In a num­ber of cas­es, it com­menced as fondling and then es­ca­lat­ed. In all the cas­es, the young women felt it was their fault. In many of the cas­es, the young women did not go to the po­lice or a coun­sel­lor. Nor did par­ents or friends know of the is­sue.The vic­tims felt that peo­ple would judge them as pro­vok­ing the at­tack rather than as the vic­tim. They be­lieved they would be ridiculed and scorned by their peers if they knew what had hap­pened. They were hor­ri­fied at what they thought the re­ac­tion of their par­ents and neigh­bours would be.

In ad­di­tion, these young fe­males were afraid of the at­ti­tude of the po­lice to­wards women. More­over, many felt the jus­tice sys­tem would be ei­ther lengthy or bi­ased or would ex­pose them to pub­lic scruti­ny and ridicule. But it is not on­ly these date rapes that go un­re­port­ed. Some­times the pub­lic gets one small peek at rapes oc­cur­ring in the house­hold and the spec­u­la­tion is that where there is one case ex­posed per­haps ten more go un­re­port­ed or does not meet the eye of the pub­lic. No doubt these cas­es join the silent voic­es of many oth­ers.The is­sue of un­re­port­ed rape cas­es, though, is one that should be giv­en more at­ten­tion. No doubt the jus­tice sys­tem and the at­ti­tude of the po­lice de­ter many peo­ple from re­port­ing the in­ci­dents, but an­oth­er fac­tor should al­so be giv­en se­ri­ous at­ten­tion, name­ly the so­ci­ety.Does so­ci­ety, for in­stance, have some­thing to do with the way men view women? Or is it that the so­ci­ety places a stig­ma on women who are raped? Are there dif­fer­ent yard­sticks for men as op­posed to women? Is it that the lax­i­ty of the laws with re­spect to pornog­ra­phy one of the many causal fac­tors? Does the so­ci­ety and its im­pact on fam­i­ly life have any re­la­tion­ship with rape? It is ev­i­dent, though, that the is­sue of rape, un­re­port­ed as well as re­port­ed, must once more be aired thor­ough­ly. If we fail to do so, the silent cries will con­tin­ue to be un­heard.

Ann Marie Bisses­sar

(Pro­fes­sor,Pub­lic Man­age­ment)

an­n­marie.bisses­sar@sta.uwi.edu