Sep 22, 2025
Editorial, News

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Kaieteur News – “And we will intensify our efforts against domestic violence -we must kill this now”, said President Mohamed Irfaan Ali during his second turn at the inaugural podium.

We are in complete agreement with President Ali, because if the domestic violence scourge is not brought to a grinding halt at the soonest, there is no telling how many more Guyanese women could be killed by their partners, some in the most gruesome of ways.  There must be an end to this national embarrassment known as domestic violence, and that effort from the government must start right away.

President Ali is known to have made powerful statements in the past about how much his Government will do relative to sensitive issues of national importance in Guyana.  Then he and his statements that gave so much encouragement all but disappeared.  National unity was one such issue, and that was accompanied by transparency and accountability. Three issues of national significance, but on each of which the government’s record is so poor that it has to be kept under lock and key.

Who can forget what was tantamount to an oath made by President Ali to “review and renegotiate” all contracts, only for him to walk back his words on the biggest contract of all, the 2016 ExxonMobil oil contract?  The President didn’t look too vigorous, and still has not recovered from his seeking shelter under “sanctity of contract.”

Since it is the time of a new beginning, and in that same spirit, we at this paper are ready to let yesterday stay in the mists of yesterday.  However, that vile and barbaric oil contract cannot stand, must not be allowed to stand.  It is a national humiliation that prompts the world to laugh at Guyana, from the same people who report on how grandly Guyana is doing with its huge national bonanza. In the same way, ExxonMobil oil contract is a national disgrace, so also is the ugliness of domestic violence, which makes every self-respecting Guyanese man want to hide his face.  Due to this state in the local environment, President Ali has a large groundswell of favorable sentiment and public opinion behind him relative to doing something of significance with domestic violence.

“We must kill this now”, and though the President could have chosen a different verb, few are the Guyanese who will take objection to his declaration of intent.  The circumstances warrant such strong leadership language, and the situation is now so out of hand that there is little time for nuance and tactful language.  There is growing impatience with the episodic violence in homes, and sometimes what reaches as far as workplaces and public spaces.  Too many Guyanese women have been battered into a catatonic state, and too many of them have paid with their lives, often in the most harrowing of circumstances.  Even worse, the children are also made into fatal victims, on occasion.  In the first eight months of this year alone, a staggering 13 women lost their lives at the hands of their domestic partners, their so-called loved ones.

One woman was brutally beaten to death, another was set on fire and killed, a third was shot twelve times and succumbed.  These represent less than a quarter of the women in this country killed by people they knew and loved, and this was just in slightly over the first half of this year.  Something has to be done to stop this carnage that occurs in what should be the safest place for a woman and her children, her home.  This has to stop, cannot be allowed to continue, and whatever radical action the President and Government have in mind, we do not think that there will be much pushback from the public.  When women are brutalised, it is not just the families that are wounded.  The communities live with the horror and the shame, and the known beast lurking in the vicinity is seen as a danger to everyone. It seems that counseling and court orders are largely impotent, and that awareness and interventions are of limited value.  “We must kill this now” will send a message to intended abusers that the tables have turned.

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