Rhon­dor Dowlat

The Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (RC­STT) has de­fend­ed its de­ci­sion to ac­cept a $15,000 do­na­tion from a sen­tenced rapist. How­ev­er, it has al­so an­nounced plans to re­view its pro­ce­dures for ac­cept­ing court-or­dered do­na­tions in the wake of pub­lic back­lash over the is­sue.

This fol­lows a re­cent case in which a sur­vivor of sex­u­al vi­o­lence di­rect­ed her at­tack­er to give a do­na­tion to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, RC­STT con­firmed re­ceiv­ing a $15,000 do­na­tion on De­cem­ber 16 as part of a court or­der. It not­ed that the do­na­tion stemmed from the vic­tim’s re­quest to have com­pen­sa­tion redi­rect­ed to sup­port RC­STT’s work in­stead of it be­ing paid to her di­rect­ly.

“This is the first time that a sit­u­a­tion like this has oc­curred. The RC­STT would seek to hold con­sul­ta­tions with its var­i­ous stake­hold­ers to re­view its process­es and de­ter­mine how mat­ters such as this will be treat­ed in the fu­ture,” the state­ment said.

RC­STT em­pha­sised that it op­er­ates in­de­pen­dent­ly of the ju­di­cia­ry and played no role in the sen­tenc­ing de­ci­sion of the High Court.

“The judge’s de­ci­sion in this mat­ter was not in­flu­enced by, or the re­sult of, any com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the RC­STT,” it said.

High Court Judge Kathy-Ann Wa­ter­man-Latchoo sen­tenced Mark Cal­va­hal to six years, 11 months and two weeks in prison last week, af­ter grant­i­ng sev­er­al re­duc­tions, in­clud­ing one for the do­na­tion to the so­ci­ety.

The vic­tim’s re­quest to di­rect com­pen­sa­tion to RC­STT was con­sis­tent with Sec­tion 4(3) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which al­lows sur­vivors to re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion from con­vict­ed of­fend­ers.

How­ev­er, the judge’s de­ci­sion to fac­tor the do­na­tion in con­sid­er­ing a re­duced sen­tence has come un­der fire by some sec­tors of so­ci­ety.

NTA deputy chair­man Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein added her voice to the dis­con­tent on Sun­day, say­ing, “While I am not ques­tion­ing the Ju­di­cia­ry or the spe­cif­ic de­tails of this case, I be­lieve that this de­ci­sion sends a mes­sage to the wider com­mu­ni­ty that jus­tice has a price tag.”

The Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety yes­ter­day ac­knowl­edged the im­por­tance of com­pen­sa­tion in aid­ing sur­vivors’ re­cov­ery and said funds are used to pro­vide ther­a­py, med­ical as­sis­tance, and oth­er crit­i­cal sup­port. How­ev­er, it recog­nised the need for clear­er guide­lines to ad­dress sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions in the fu­ture.

RC­STT re­it­er­at­ed its mis­sion to sup­port in­di­vid­u­als af­fect­ed by sex­u­al and gen­der-based vi­o­lence and called for con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion with stake­hold­ers to im­prove its process­es.