It is appalling how often women are being degraded and their fundamental rights are being infringed on in the media.
There is a trend in the Kaieteur News towards constantly degrading women and attacking their fundamental rights.
Kaieteur News has a fetish for attacking people who they perceive to be supportive of the government.
Their attacks usually are libellous, racist, sexist and vulgar and this mode of attack is in lieu of them not being able to make a logical case against their target.
Target
Their latest target is Town Clerk Carol Sooba and on December 16 –– it was vulgar and, by any standards, exceeded the limits that even an unfair and absolutely biased newspaper sets itself. They were targeting Sooba for ridicule. Guyana is a free country and we are certain there are civilised ways to ridicule someone.
Questioning someone’s qualification for a job does not give you a right to ridicule and call the person a prostitute. It is wrong and all groups that claim they exist to promote and protect the fundamental rights of women cannot fail to see the injustice in this wicked piece of journalism.
The biased nature of Kaieteur News is not the point of our contention.
Priya Manickchand
Kaieteur News has disrespected women many times before. Some time ago, Kaieteur News ridiculed another woman who occupies a senior position in government. It was another vulgar piece of journalism and society must demand adherence to common decency.
What we also find appalling is the silence from organisations that supposedly exist and get financial support to promote and protect the interests of women.
Whether or not Sooba is a legitimate candidate for the position of town clerk, no one has a right to attack her in the vile manner that Kaieteur News did.
What if the town clerk controversy involved a man? If that man was perceived to be a supporter of the government, Kaieteur News would have been in a frantic mode about him not having the academic qualification.
This would have been within their right, whether they were correct or not.But would Kaieteur News have descended to being vile, vulgar and utterly disrespectful? Maybe they would have celebrated the fact that he might be a gigolo.
This is the kind of discrimination, inequality and disrespect we in Guyana, men and women, fought to prevent.
We are encouraged that the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/ C) government recognised the ill-advised attack on this woman and was bold enough to make public its concerns.
We heard someone from the Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO) spoke about this matter. We also heard female ministers in government speak out, including Priya Manickchand, Jenifer Webster and Gail Teixeira.
Silence
Gail Teixeira
But where is the Red Thread Organisation? Where is the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA)? Where is Transparency International? Where is Amnesty International? Where are the women’s arms of other political parties? Where are the political leaders of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and Alliance For Change (AFC)? Where are David Granger, Khemraj Ramjattan and Moses Nagamoottoo? It is repugnant that women of the stature of Amna Ally, Volda Lawrence, Cathy Hughes, Debra Backer and Valerie Garrido-Lowe, so vociferous in other matters, chose to be silent. We need to stand up for Sooba, not for her job, but because she is being told that she can only get the job because of the reason the Kaieteur News column gave.
Ridicule
If you are perceived to be supportive of government, you are targeted for ridicule. If you are also a woman, you become targeted for ridicule by being called names. Sooba is a target not because of the particular job the Kaieteur News and others don’t want her to have, but because they perceive her to be supportive of the government.
We do not know the political persuasion of Sooba, and we stand by her, not because of her job, but because as a woman, she is equal in the eyes of God and in the eyes of humanity, whether or not Kaieteur News thinks so.
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