Hosein: Sex register no substitute for hard work on gender violence

DR GABRIELLE HOSEIN, head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at UWI, St Augustine, is not convinced that a public sex offenders register is the solution to Trinidad and Tobago's problem of sexual violence.

She said the remedy lay in much work to be done urgently to improve state machinery and to change social norms.

Her remarks came after calls for a full public access to a registry held by the police instead of the current limited access.

Hosein said in the case of murdered teenager Ashanti Riley, it was not clear whether the perpetrator/s had a previous criminal record which would have led to him or them being recorded in the registry.

“The effectiveness of a registry also requires an efficient and well-functioning justice system. That is simply not the case with sexual violence in TT.”

The reality, she lamented, is that rape is experienced as virtually decriminalised.

“It occurs continuously across our communities without sufficient reporting, prosecution, conviction or availability of counselling and options for restorative justice.

“There are known and repeat perpetrators of sexual aggression, abuse, assault and rape in families, in religious organisations, in sports groups, in communities, in gangs, in taxis and on our streets.”

Saying one in five women in TT will report non-partner sexual violence, Hosein mulled whether this meant one in five men were perpetrating such violence or whether certain men were doing so repeatedly, leaving a trail of victims, and multiple bystanders who know of it.

“Imagine if we named all those we knew. How many men in the population, how many male members of families would be on the registry? What is it supposed to accomplish when used as a trigger response?

“Perpetrators will be run out of one community into another in which perpetrators already exist. They are already everywhere.”

Offenders are everywhere, she said, because neither at a state nor societal level has the society ever done enough to challenge violence and its causes, nor violence against women and girls and its pervasiveness.

“If reporting is low, and impunity and complicity are high, and if our social norms continue to valorise both men’s violence and their power over women and girls, most of those men will not be on the registry.”

Hosein said a registry is not an immediate solution, as its purpose was not prevention, which is where the focus should be.

“Our focus should be on changing the social norms that make sexual violence, particularly but not only against women and girls, common place.

“It should be on breaking silences on child sexual abuse, adult men’s grooming of adolescent girls, and forced sex by partners and non-partners.

“It should be on families and communities no longer being complicit or staying quiet to retain respect or make ends meet, no longer continuing to protect perpetrators while the victims struggle in silence and shame.”

Hosein called for action.

She urged vastly increased reporting, zero tolerance of sexual violence within families, a justice system that secures a better rate of conviction, public education that tackles gender-based and sexual violence from primary school, better resourced and more responsive policing and counselling services.

“Broad-based work to reduce violence – whether perpetrated against women, men, children or non-gender conforming people – by us all, and especially by and among men and boys, is necessary and urgent.

“If we want to end the loss, trauma and horror we are experiencing, we have to be prepared to do the work required to actually make a change.”