I am appalled that police kept the public in the dark about the serial rape situation.
The excuse that this was done to protect the victims doesn’t hold water because victims of sexual abuse are not identified by police or the media.
Rather than protect victims, the decision to keep the public ignorant may, in fact, have contributed to an increase in the number of victims.
I suspect police and perhaps the government were afraid the news would have a negative impact on the tourist industry.
When will they learn that you can’t keep anything like this under the lid, especially in this day of social media?
The day the press broke the story, police issued a wanted bulletin. By the next day, two men were arrested for questioning in connection with the incident.
Wouldn’t it have been smarter to do this in the first place?
On the one hand, police want the public to share information. On the other, it tried to keep women oblivious to this most heinous crime.
But then, this type of thinking goes hand in hand with the backward practice of discriminating against women.
Today, in 2012, Bahamian women married to non-Bahamians are still unable to enjoy the same citizenship rights as their male counterparts.
Imagine!
By: Athena Damianos
