An­na-Lisa Paul

The Po­lice Ser­vice is ad­vis­ing mem­bers of the trav­el­ling pub­lic, com­mut­ing late at night or dur­ing the wee hours of the morn­ing, to ex­er­cise cau­tion in wake of re­cent re­ports of women hav­ing to jump out of mov­ing ve­hi­cles to es­cape be­ing sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed. Yes­ter­day, Po­lice Ser­vice pub­lic In­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Joanne Archie said while they have not seen an in­crease in re­port­ed rapes or sex­u­al of­fences, they have re­ceived sev­er­al re­ports of women es­cap­ing their would-be at­tack­ers.

Speak­ing at the dai­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Archie said: "We have not seen an in­crease, but re­ports are be­ing made where women had cause to jump out of mov­ing ve­hi­cles hav­ing been dri­ven to iso­lat­ed lo­ca­tions or tak­en off-route from their des­ti­na­tions. We want to cau­tion women, aware­ness is your first line of de­fence."

Urg­ing fe­male com­muters to "lis­ten to your in­tu­ition," Archie said per­son­al aware­ness played an in­te­gral role in crime pre­ven­tion. She ap­pealed to peo­ple to avoid com­mut­ing late at night where pos­si­ble, and "if you have to, be­fore en­ter­ing a ve­hi­cle, see who the oc­cu­pants are and if you have an in­tu­itive feel­ing that some­thing is wrong or sus­pi­cious, re­act im­me­di­ate­ly and take ac­tion to re­duce your risk of be­com­ing a vic­tim."

Sug­gest­ing oth­er ways in which peo­ple could pro­tect them­selves, Archie ad­vised trav­ellers to text the num­ber of the taxi or pri­vate car they en­ter to a rel­a­tive or friend. "If you be­come wor­ried about your safe­ty, ask the dri­ver to stop and get out of the car, prefer­ably in a busy area. If you are con­front­ed and you can­not im­me­di­ate­ly es­cape, you may want to con­sid­er com­ply­ing un­til you can es­cape," she said.

To peo­ple who must trav­el at night, Archie urged them to avoid wear­ing a lot of jew­el­ry and car­ry­ing large amounts of cash on their per­son. "When faced with some­one who de­mands your valu­ables, give it to them with­out re­sis­tance. No pos­ses­sion, how­ev­er valu­able, is worth risk­ing your life over." Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of date rape, Archie urged women to car­ry out prop­er in­quiries be­fore pro­ceed­ing on a blind date, and to al­ways meet first-time dates at pub­lic places.

"Al­ways let some­one know where you are go­ing and who you are go­ing out with, and what your itin­er­ary is. If on a date, please do not leave the safe­ty of a so­cial event or set­ting with some­one you have just met or do not know well. Al­so, open your drinks your­self," Archie said.

On the top­ic of gang rape, Archie ad­vised young men not to be co­erced by their peers to en­gage in any sex­u­al act with some­one who may be in­tox­i­cat­ed-ei­ther un­der the in­flu­ence of drink or drug-since that per­son will be un­able to give con­sent and the per­pe­tra­tor will be crim­i­nal­ly li­able.