Protest held against rape and abuse of girls, women

A group of citizens took the streets on Tuesday, May 15 to protest the reports of child sexual abuse over the past few days.

On May 9, a 10-year-old was allegedly abducted and raped by an assailant.Police have since issued a wanted bulletin for the suspect, Simeon ‘Gabo’ Francois, who is on the run and is said to be armed and dangerous. Within days of that assault, another man was brought to court earlier this week to face charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

SEARCHLIGHT spoke with parliamentary representative for Central Kingstown St Clair Leacock, who was part of the small group protesting peacefully outside of the High Court, where another case of alleged sexual abuse of a child and incest was being heard.Leacock said his involvement with the protest was not of a political nature, and he wished to be counted among those concerned about the violence to which our women are subjected.

Sarah Badnock, whose daughter was sexually abused, was among the group of protestors.

“I am also a father, a husband; I have six girl grandchildren, … and as I repeated, I don’t know what I would do if they were violated.And we have to look at the behavioural issues that are impacting our men in statutory rape cases; exploiting our young girls and our women, and what is now becoming acceptable behaviour in St Vincent and the Grenadines,” a troubled Leacock said.

He explained that he responded to a call from social and political activist, Dave Roberts to join the protest action.Concerning the possibility of a sex offender list being introduced here, Leacock said he would not object nor resist to having names of repeat offenders in sex and rape crimes published.

The parliamentary representative said he was not acting in his political capacity as vice president of the New Democratic Party but would have loved to see his political colleagues on the Government side taking a similar stance since he does not doubt that they have the same strong feelings as he does.He said it would have been a good show of bipartisanship and unity on the matter and called on the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition to issue a joint statement on the matter.

Leacock also called for statements from the Christian Council, the Commissioner of Police and the trade union movement and questioned the absence of the National Council of Women.

“I mean this is a colossal failure by important agencies, and that is why sometimes I refer to St Vincent as a failed state when the institutions, the individuals and, the social systems which should be in place to facilitate best practice and good conduct is absent, then we are being short changed.

Opposition Leader Dr Godwin Friday with some of the protesters outside the High Court last Tuesday.

It’s a strong language but truly we can’t have this,” Leacock added.Sarah Badnock, a mother of seven, whose six-year-old daughter was sexually molested in 2012 was present at the protest. She said her child’s abuser was 54 years old, and it was not until 2016 that the case was heard and he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.However, she was not pleased since she believes he should have received a longer sentence, considering the age of the child and the psychological effects.

“She is still struggling. She is supposed to be writing CPEA this year; we have no idea how she would do because she is weak in some areas and strong in a lot of areas, but then she had two years of counselling and people thought that … she was doing okay until we saw certain behaviour, which means that she has not been healed.

So we still working with her and praying that eventually she might get over it,” the mother said.Badnock said she was protesting to give solidarity to all mothers whose daughters are victims of sexual abuse, and she asked them “to rise up, stand up, don’t sell your child; your child is not worth no money, no property, anything. Anybody molest your child, do the right thing, go to the police, go to court.

It doesn’t matter how long it takes, hold on, hang on and see justice for your child.That is why I am here.”

Leader of the Opposition, Dr Godwin Friday, who was also present, said he is fully in support of the protest.“…the issue of sexual violence and sexual crimes in this country is a disgrace and … attention needs to be given to it as an urgent matter…. It’s something we definitely have to address as a society,” Friday said.The protest was staged from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and the organizers say their intention is for the protest to continue.