UPP’S WOMEN’S FORUM SAYS PRIME MINISTER’S REMARKS ENCOURAGE LOCAL MEN TO SEE VINCENTIAN WOMEN AS SEX OBJECTS
Meanwhile, the Women’s Forum of the United Progressive Party (UPP-WF) has taken a bold step and come forward to chastise the Prime Minister.
In a press statement issued on Sunday, April 11, the Women’s Forum refers to PM Gaston Browne’s remarks as disgusting.
The Forum says it “strongly condemns the Facebook remarks” which, at any time at all, would be considered vulgar, demeaning, sexist, and inappropriate.
But Browne’s comments are especially inexcusable at a time like this, when Vincentians are vulnerable, anxious, and in peril, the Forum says.
Accordingly, the women’s group finds the Prime Minister’s comments neither funny nor light-hearted, and it is disgusted that the head of Government would behave in this manner.
The women say they view the statements as “predatory and an encouragement of the men of our Nation to see women as ‘prey’ and as sex objects.”
If the situation were reversed, with Antiguans and Barbudans being invited to accept refuge elsewhere, the women say they would want assurances that the haven is safe and honourably intended.
The group is admonishing the people of Antigua & Barbuda – including religious and civil-society leaders – to condemn Browne’s remarks and any actions that might result from them, since they set an un-Christian and dangerous example.
“We further encourage all persons to pray for the safety, security, and well-being of the people and nation of St. Vincent & The Grenadines, and to do all we decently and charitably can to ease their suffering and return them to normalcy,” the statement says.
It ends by saying, “We are, indeed, our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers; and on this National Day of Prayer, we are guided by the words of Matthew 25:40: ‘… Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
