The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

LISA Rahming, State Minister for Social Services and Urban Development, says there is a need for public education on gender-based violence before new legislation addressing the social issue is brought into force.

Earlier this month, Attorney General Ryan Pinder told reporters that his ministry had compiled “a suite of legislation” which includes laws addressing gender-based violence and marital rape.

Yesterday, Ms Rahming said she was told that draft legislation on gender-based violence and marital rape was still under review.

Asked about the terminologies that would be used in the legislation concerning marital rape, Ms Rahming said nothing has been determined in that regard.

“I would support whatever terminology at the end of the day that is placed in the act and agreed between everyone,” she said.

However, she refused to say what her position is on marital rape and whether she believed “rape is rape”.

Ms Rahming made the comments to reporters before going to a Cabinet meeting yesterday, where she spoke about her trip to New York to attend a United Nations conference centred on women’s empowerment.

The state minister said she had fruitful conversations with various international representatives, among them the ambassador for Guyana.

She said the two spoke about the importance of public education on gender-based violence issues.

“The ambassador for Guyana, I had a bilateral meeting with her and her team and it was amazing because a Guyana (representative) sits at the table at the United Nations to represent the CARICOM countries and we spoke about not so much marital rape, but we talked about gender-based (issues) and the definitions used even in their country and we got examples of how it could be interpreted other ways and both of us agreed that it’s important that we have educational forums,” she said.

“I know for a fact that before any act is really pulled out, for the public to accept what you’re saying and to even understand and appreciate it, we know at this point and it was agreed between Guyana and us that it’s important that we do public education.

“We also discussed it in our legal forum with the gender-based (issues) that we had and the panel was using certain terminologies because when you use certain terminologies, that will somehow make persons think different from what it means so we have to be clear on what we say and we also have to communicate that to the public in order for them to understand how important it is to pass this act.”