females, while Police reported another one.

A woman walking alone on Church Street in the city last Friday was indecently assaulted by two young men around midnight, Police said yesterday.

The attack was the latest reported in just two weeks.

In that period, two young women reported being raped in their homes, a 20-year-old woman said she was attacked at night in a churchyard and, most recently, a woman told Police someone attempted to rape her in some bushes along the South Shore in Warwick.

Women's Resource Centre chairwoman Mrs. Shanda Simmons said judges were not handing down harsh enough sentences to sex offenders.

She added men charged with sex offences or domestic violence should not be tried in Magistrates' Court.

Women's Advisory Council head Mrs. Kim Young said not enough is being done to encourage Bermudian families not to beat or hit children.

But the anonymous group POWS (Protect Our Women's Safety), who once suggested convicted male sex offenders be caned, seems to have disappeared. The group formed in May after the killing of a German tourist in April.

Both Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Young told The Royal Gazette earlier this year of their disgust a magistrate's treatment of two men who admitted beating up women.

One, Stacey Simpson, who punched his wife in the face and jammed her arm in a car door, was given a conditional discharge. And Colin Simmons, who hit his girlfriend while she lay in hospital, was given a one-month suspended prison sentence.

But Mrs. Simmons said yesterday: "Punishment is still not harsh enough. Too many suspended sentences are being given out.'' But she also admitted stiff sentences were not always the answer. "I think more attention needs to paid to rehabilitating sex offenders. A lot of them are repeat offenders.'' She added she does not believe violence against women by men they know is increasing.

"I think people are less frightened to report such offences (being sexually assaulted by a lover or date) and are becoming more aware they are crimes,'' she said.

She said the centre's biannual courses on sexual assault may have helped heighten awareness of the crime. The next course starts on September 23 and costs $30 for 10 weeks of lectures.

Mrs. Young was concerned about domestic violence in Bermuda, especially among siblings.

She pointed to a Magistrates' Court case last week where a brother admitted punching and kicking his sister, causing a gash to her eye.

Mrs. Young noted the man told Police he had been waiting to hit his sister for a long time and was not sorry he had. He was sent to Supreme Court for sentencing.

"Parents should not be allowing this sort of violence to happen,'' she said.

"I think parents should be encouraged to bring their children up without corporal punishment because what is happening now is they are actually being abused. Children need to be taught skills to resolve their problems without their fists, so they will do it when they get older as well.'' Mrs. Young and Mrs. Simmons acsaid it was unfortunate tough new sex offence laws did not reach Parliament during the last session.

The new laws will replace the term rape with four new terms recognising the degree of violence used and will make it an offence for a husband to rape his wife.