In Guyana and Mayotte, domestic violence increased last year. According to the reports of the Ministry of the Interior, on the island in the Indian Ocean, whose population is estimated between 350,000 and 400,000 inhabitants, domestic violence has increased by 20.37% – from 108 to 130 facts – in the police zone, and by 44% in the gendarmerie zone (from 152 to 219 incidents) over the year 2022.
Domestic violence increased by 8.4% in Guyana (+16.9% nationally). Sexual violence and assault and battery are also on the rise.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done”
Guyana, the largest French department, experienced 47 homicides in 2022, compared to 31 in 2021, an increase of 51%. This represents 5% of the facts observed at the national level, according to figures from the prefecture. Among these facts, 26 took place in the family environment, and led to two feminicides and the death of two infants. The other homicides in 2022 were committed in urban areas and in the forest, the latter often linked to illegal gold panning. In Mayotte, general crime is up 12.55% according to figures from the prefecture.
“There is a lot of work that needs to be done” on this intra-family violence, commented the prefect Thierry Queffelec of Guyana, during a press conference on Friday, “homicides have evolved very strongly. In the street, there are many of them, but we manage to control them”. Domestic violence leads to “five to six police custody a day”, according to the public prosecutor Yves Le Clair, present at the conference.
To prevent this violence, in addition to the public force, Thierry Queffelec evokes a “work on the integrated security contracts where the construction of personalities will pass through educational cities, such associative and cultural work”.
Some violent events are in decline. In Guyana, armed robberies and burglaries fell by 14% and 6.2%. In Mayotte, it was the villainous violence in the police zone that fell by 8.10%, from 432 to 397 incidents.