Rape Prosecution, Culture and Inequality in Postcolonial Grenada
Author(s)
Mahabir, Cynthia
Abstract
There is an inherent paradox in the relationship between gender and equality for victims of sexual violence in Grenada, as in most other societies in the postcolonial anglophone Caribbean. Grenada’s court records reveal statistics on sexual violence against females that charges for rape are infrequent and are outnumbered by charges for indecent assault and unlawful carnal knowledge. Yet rape and sexual violence are known as significant and growing social problems and the prosecutors with Grenada’s Justice Department pursue these charges vigorously. Sadly, aggressive court prosecution against such horrendous actions, while possible in Grenada in the 1980s (the main period of this study), was quite often thwarted by informal financial payments that kept such crimes outside the boundaries of the formal legal system.
