MARGAO: Welcoming the latest law providing death sentence for child rapists, Bailancho Ekvott President Auda Viegas demanded that the authorities begin asking for stringent punishment in courts.
Asserting that death sentence was the only answer to incestuous rape, she also stressed on the need and importance of social policing.
Claiming alcohol is the cause of various problems including rape, she said that the man who raped his 14-year-old daughter was an alcoholic and deserved the death sentence; and she lamented that abuse of minors is on the rise in the State.
She said that many rape and incestuous rape cases are not reported because of false sense of “family reputation” and “shame” and that a crime like rape has to be acted upon and the culprit has to be punished.
Pointing out that during the tourist season there is a huge floating population, she said social policing should be given importance at this time and people should get involved in keeping a neighbourhood watch on what is happening and reporting the wrong doings to the police.
“This is very important as during the tourist season young girls are trafficked under the guise of working in massage parlours and other facilities and this has to be stopped,” she said adding that Bailancho Ekvott is willing to help anybody taking up such cases of misuse and abuse of massage parlours.
Supporting the demand for no bars in Surla village which only attracts people from across the border to drink and create havoc for the locals, she also sought to know why the taxpayers’ money should be spent on cleaning the beaches that are littered with empty alcohol containers.
“By installing CCTV cameras, tourists taking alcohol bottles and cans to the beach should be fined there itself, instead of wasting the taxpayers’ money in cleaning the mess created by the tourists,” she said.
Agreeing on the need to stop drug proliferation and usage particularly amongst the younger generation, she wondered how the government could promote EDMs which run only on drugs or intoxicants. “Can anybody dance for such long hours without any intoxicants?” she asked.
Auda demanded that the foreign tourists be given an advisory when they arrive in Goa to avoid going to lonely places and befriending strangers as many of them are observed to befriend and at times even live with known law breakers.
Lamenting the promotion of alcohol in the name of tourism, she expressed shock that visitors to Goa have even started growing drugs in Goa. She expressed alarm that young migrant children are seen taking drugs behind the kiosks at KRC station in Margao.
“These children could be exploited sexually; peddlers also could exploit them in future,” she said and urged people to bring such instances to the notice of the police.
Appreciating the fact that after seven years one person has applied for the Prabhat Scheme meant to help women who were forced into trafficking rehabilitate themselves, she lamented that in Goa because most of the trafficked women were from outside the State they could not apply for this scheme and also because it was not promoted sufficiently.
She also pointed out that under the Victim Compensation Scheme, any rape victim can get a compensation ranging from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 10 lakh and said more Goans should avail of this scheme.
