The Guyana gov­ern­ment is un­der­tak­ing pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the new ‘Pro­tec­tion from Ha­rass­ment Bill 2024,’ as it seeks to erad­i­cate gen­der-based vi­o­lence (GBV) in the coun­try.

The au­thor­i­ties said the pub­lic ex­er­cise will end on De­cem­ber 5 and the event, which is be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Min­istry of Hu­man Ser­vices and So­cial Se­cu­ri­ty, is of­fer­ing cit­i­zens an op­por­tu­ni­ty to voice their views on the fi­nal draft leg­is­la­tion.

The pro­posed bill seeks to ad­dress ha­rass­ment in var­i­ous set­tings, par­tic­u­lar­ly in both pub­lic and pri­vate work­places, with a par­tic­u­lar fo­cus on pro­tect­ing vul­ner­a­ble groups and pre­vent­ing sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and stalk­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the draft, ha­rass­ment cov­ers any con­duct that caus­es harm, in­duces fear, or oth­er­wise dis­turbs the peace of in­di­vid­u­als through ac­tions in­clud­ing fol­low­ing sur­veil­lance, and un­want­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

It al­so in­cludes di­rect and in­di­rect forms of ha­rass­ment while ad­dress­ing in­stances where third par­ties, such as fam­i­ly or friends, might be af­fect­ed.

In ad­di­tion, the bill high­lights sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in pri­vate and pub­lic do­mains and man­dates that em­ploy­ers make every rea­son­able ef­fort to pre­vent ha­rass­ment in work­places, schools, in­sti­tu­tions, and sim­i­lar en­vi­ron­ments.

Ac­cord­ing­ly, it crim­i­nalis­es be­hav­iours like stalk­ing, threat­en­ing, and oth­er ha­rass­ing acts, pe­nal­is­ing of­fend­ers with fines of up to $1 mil­lion and prison terms rang­ing from six months to one year.

Stalk­ing, as list­ed, in­cludes fol­low­ing a per­son, send­ing un­so­licit­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions, mon­i­tor­ing on­line ac­tiv­i­ty, and loi­ter­ing near a per­son’s home or work­place.

To up­hold con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, the bill man­dates that all in­sti­tu­tions cre­ate a se­cure reg­is­ter for record­ing com­plaints, and on­ly au­tho­rised in­di­vid­u­als can ac­cess this in­for­ma­tion. It warns that unau­tho­rised dis­clo­sure of de­tails re­lat­ed to com­plaints can lead to le­gal con­se­quences.

An in­de­pen­dent tri­bunal com­pris­ing sev­en mem­bers will be es­tab­lished to han­dle ha­rass­ment and sex­u­al ha­rass­ment cas­es, of­fer­ing a bal­anced and fair ap­proach to hear­ing com­plaints.

At least half of the tri­bunal mem­bers must be women to en­sure gen­der sen­si­tiv­i­ty in de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

These mem­bers in­clude le­gal pro­fes­sion­als, me­di­a­tors, and ex­perts in gen­der and labour af­fairs. In­di­vid­u­als with con­flicts of in­ter­est must de­clare their con­nec­tion and re­frain from par­tic­i­pat­ing in re­lat­ed de­lib­er­a­tions.

Once the tri­bunal is op­er­a­tional, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, work­ers, and stu­dents can for­mal­ly sub­mit com­plaints for re­view.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Oct 28, CMC –

CMC/gt/ir/2024