War on women
By Andre Bagoo Sunday, July 1 2012
IN THE GARDEN of Eden, Adam blamed Eve for his fall from grace.
In
a similar manner, the State appears to be waging a one-sided war
against women and women only, when it comes to prosecuting cases of
cruelty to children.
In the last two weeks alone, no less than four women have been
hauled before the courts on various charges relating to the treatment of
their children, according to reports in Newsday last week. A common
factor in all of the cases was an absent father.
But while these charges and convictions have been hailed and
welcomed by some, others ask: where are the men? Why have the men, who
have fathered these children and – in some cases – abandoned them, not
been held responsible? Should only women be held up for blame, in the
way Eve alone was blamed for Adam’s wrong-doing?
“I want to know when the police are going to charge the fathers with
neglect and abandonment,” said Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, who founded a
shelter for women and children and served as an Independent Senator.
“None of those women in those cases had virgin births. If every one
of those abandoned and neglected children has a male parent, it is
logical to assume the male parent should bear equal responsibility under
the law for the support and care of the children.”
She continued, “Until that happens, we will not have equality before the law. We will have what appears to be a war on women.”
On Monday, mother of four Kamla Ramcharan, 29, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
She was sentenced to three years in jail for holding her
eight-year-old daughter Vishala’s hand over a hot flat iron plate
(tawah) used for cooking. Ramcharan told the magistrate she was trying
to teach her daughter a lesson about the wrongs of stealing by placing
her daughter’s soft hand on the hot tawah.
“I not sorry for what I do,” she told Magistrate Gillian David-Scotland.
“I sure she not going to steal again.”
The child had suffered third degree burns to her left hand, likely
to leave lingering effects for the rest of her life. In the end, the
Magistrate had a lesson for Ramcharan.
“It is a heinous way to punish your child,” the Chaguanas Magistrate said.
“The child may have been innocent. Children did not ask to come in
this world. When the police asked you about the incident, you showed no
remorse, instead you said ‘you not sorry’. You will serve three years in
jail.”
On Tuesday, a 50-year-old mother of seven was sentenced to nine
months for beating her daughter after the nine-year-old reported to her –
via a cousin — that she had been raped in 2003 by a male relative. She
was charged under Section 31 (1) of the Sexual Offences Act last year.
San Fernando Magistrate Alicia Chankar told the woman, “A mother serves
as protector and as parents, we have a duty to care for our children.”
As if by clockwork, on Wednesday, another woman appeared in court
charged with mistreating her children. This time it was Janelle Peters, a
mother of three, charged with abandoning her children, Joella, Joel and
Jaden Alton, at their Longdenville, Chaguanas home on Tuesday night.
The charge was “willful neglect/abandonment in a manner likely to cause
unnecessary suffering or injury.” Peters was sent to jail pending bail
and will be sentenced in August.
And then on Thursday, a woman pregnant with twins, Kezi Doughty, 33,
was taken before Magistrate Chankar. The charge? Abandoning five of her
nine children at King’s Wharf in San Fernando.
The cases have come amid persistent concerns over high levels of
crime – expressed as recently as Friday by Minister of National Security
Jack Warner. According to Superintendent Johnny Abraham, the State has
been adopting a “zero tolerance” stance against crime and has been,
lately, paying particular attention to dealing with any and all forms of
abuse against children.
But the apparently unintended effect of this new effort has been to
wage a war on women and not men, resulting in a manifestly unfair
process, according to some.
All of the cases in the last few days involved absent fathers, some
of whom have also clearly abandoned their children. While the mothers
have been charged with neglect, none of the fathers have.
Warner, speaking with Sunday Newsday on Friday, argued one possible cause of the problem: the fathers cannot be found.
“They should be charged yes,” he said.
“But that is if they can be found.”
Yet, can the fathers be found? In the case of Peters and her three
children left at King’s Wharf, the children said their father was at
work at 10 o’clock at night. Lawyers said being at work is not a defence
to the charge of neglect, though it may relate to sentencing.
In the case of pregnant Doughty, the Magistrate was driven to ask
why the father of the five children who were abandoned was not also
charged for abandonment.
As for the male relative who actually raped the girl who complained
to her mother of rape, to her detriment, it is not clear if the man has
been charged. It is also not clear if the girl’s father, too, was
informed of what she reported and whether he, too, failed to report the
case. The father seems to have not been in the picture, raising social –
if not legal – questions.
The father in the case of the child whose hand was burnt on a tawah
appears to be the exception. Though the girl missed school for a week,
it was not teachers at the girl’s school who raised the alarm. It was
her father. He reported the matter to the police. But after the woman
was penalised last week, he seemed to harbour regrets over having done
so. He told Newsday, “When I heard the news, I was lost for words
because I never thought she would have been given such a stiff sentence.
Although I resent what she did to our daughter, I have since forgiven
her.”
A friend of the mother, who did not want to be named, said she often assisted the mother in caring for her children.
“This is harsh,” the friend said.
“That woman try hard but she is frustrated. Three years is too harsh
for a mother. It have people doing worse than that and getting less
jail.”
New law will apply to men and women
“I am not saying that the women are right,” Mahabir-Wyatt made clear.
“But it takes a village to raise a child. That is not just a saying.
It takes both parents to make a child these days, not like in the old
days when women had unilateral, miraculous, virgin births. Do you know
how difficult it is to feed and clothe and raise a child?”
Mahabir-Wyatt agrees that if new legislation designed to protect
children, passed in Parliament last month, is implemented, the law will
make it clear that men, too, are responsible for children.
Section 4 of the Children’s Act entrenches the offence of cruelty to
children, holding that an offence is made out, “Where a person has
responsibility for a child and the person wilfully assaults, ill-treats,
neglects, abandons or exposes the child or causes or procures the child
to be assaulted, ill-treated, neglected, abandoned, or exposed in a
manner likely to cause that child suffering or injury to his physical,
mental or emotional health”.
The law, which was passed in June but is yet to be proclaimed,
specifically mentions a hypothetical “he” who may seek to avoid
responsibility by deserting a child.
The section which defines who has responsibility for a child reads,
“Any person who is the parent or legal guardian of a child or who is
legally liable to maintain a child is presumed to have responsibility
for the child, and, any such person shall not be deemed to have ceased
to have responsibility for the child by reason only that he has
deserted, or otherwise does not reside with the child.”
“I am waiting to see those fathers being charged,” Mahabir-Wyatt said.
While she has concerns over the fairness of the enforcement of the
current laws, Mahabir-Wyatt still thinks the cases send an important
message. Even though many of the children involved in these cases will
have to enter the foster care system, raising another set of ethical
questions, the cases are important.
“I think what the cases are doing is pointing out that children need more than one parent,” she said.
The cases also act as a strong deterrent, discouraging parents from mistreating children through penalties.
“You see the kind of penalties the court is handing down now?” Warner noted on Friday.
“The court is handing down some strict penalties and I am very happy
about that. Mothers must understand that they too are not above the
law. And this is very good.” (He did not mention fathers.)
Yet others disagree that the penalties are as high as they could be.
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, Warner’s colleague, last week told
Newsday that the mothers in all the cases seem to have gotten away.
“They get away, as they were not charged under the Children’s Act,”
the Attorney General said when asked to comment on the status of that
legislation and the recent cases.
“It’s a good question. It crossed my mind. I would say the
legislation that has been passed would have treated things in a
different way because it has a wider range of options available. I agree
with you.”
The Children’s Act was finally passed in the House of
Representatives on June 15, five months after it was first tabled. The
act has not yet come into force as it has to be proclaimed on a date to
be determined by President George Maxwell Richards, upon the advice of
Cabinet. Yet, Ramlogan could not say how soon the act will be
implemented.
“I have to check on that. Why don’t you call me on that?” he said.
Under the Children’s Act there is a general offence of committing
cruelty to a child which is punishable by a term of six years in prison
and a fine of $5,000 if convicted at the Magistrates’ Court. Upon
indictment at the High Court, the punishment moves to ten years in
prison and a fine of $50,000.
Mahabir-Wyatt argued the sentence in the case of the child’s hand being burnt on a tawah was not stiff enough.
“If it was a big grown-up adult who had had someone assault them in
that way, that would not be the sentence,” she said. New legislation
alone, though, is not the answer, Mahabir-Wyatt maintained. She noted a
need for institutions like the Children’s Authority to have enhanced
powers to act on behalf of children. She also issued a call to the State
to consider introducing more community police to detect crimes against
children, and also the introduction of nurseries for single parents who
have to work to support their children.
“The Children’s Authority should be given the support services that it needs to function,” she said, yet again.
“And every community in Trinidad and Tobago should have
Government-supported Servol- styled nurseries and nursery schools for
children whose mothers have to work to support them.”
Perhaps until such reforms are put in place and until the State’s
unfair enforcement of laws against women ceases, women shall continue to
be treated like second-class citizens. They will remain like Eve:
regarded by the State as merely products of Adam’s rib.
