Minister Manickchand implores women and young girls to…
HUMAN Services Minister, Ms. Priya Manickchand, has implored women and young girls to retain possession of any explicit photographs that are taken of them.

The Minister, in a marathon 5-hour-long television discussion on NCN Channel 11 on Sunday, titled ‘No More Black and Blue: Making Guyana a Safer Place for Women’, explained that, with the advent of new and emerging technologies, there are simultaneous new and emerging ways to abuse women.

One of these ways that she said is particularly worrying, but which can easily be prevented, is the use by male partners or former partners of naked pictures of their wives or girlfriends, or former wives or girlfriends to torment, harass, frighten, embarrass and humiliate these women.

The Minister clarified that she was not pronouncing on the morality of such photographs being taken, but implored women and young girls to retain possession of any such photograph/s so that former male partners cannot subsequently use them to abuse or threaten the female subjects in the photographs.

Minister Manickchand said that, of recent times, this new phenomenon of abuse has increasingly been brought to her attention.

She gave examples of a husband and wife who had broken up, with the husband later attaching nude photos of his estranged wife to his court records; and also of boys and men using the publication, or threat of publication, of nude photos of what used to be their girlfriend as a new means of abusing these women.

The Minister begged women that if they felt the need to take photographs that are “topless”, “bottomless” or “photos-in-action” then they should keep those photos themselves in a safe place where a wicked person could not find them and use them later on.

To the men who have engaged in this practice, the minister said passionately, “Shame on you!”