Human Services Ministry exhibition shatters myths around sexual assault

As a part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, the Human Services Ministry is currently hosting an exhibition at the University of Guyana’s Tain Berbice Campus to provide advocacy on the issue of sexual and other related forms of violence.
Sexual Assault Awareness Month is themed “Together We Act, United We Change”. This theme emphasizes the power of collective action in preventing sexual violence and building safer communities.
Survivors advocate attached to the Human Services and Social Services Ministry’s Domestic Violence Unit, Wonda Ward, who is attached to the Whim office, has said perpetrators have frequently alleged that victims have been ‘asking for it’. This, she says, is not true. The exhibition highlighted stories from victims who all claimed that nothing they were doing or the clothing they had been wearing had been ‘asking for it’; that is, to be sexually assaulted.
The exhibition also depicted the clothing that victims were wearing at the time of their assault. All of them, from those reports, were fully covered at the time.
Ward says sexual assault has nothing to do with how a person dresses. “You can be fully dressed and still be sexually assaulted, and it is not only women who are sexually assaulted; men are also being sexually assaulted,” she explained.
Pointing out that there are laws governing that act against both adults and children, she said, “So we are here at the Tain Campus to spread awareness, so that persons can be informed and enlightened that there is help for those who would have gone through or are facing sexual assault; there is help for them.”
She added that there is a 24-hour hotline dedicated to receiving reports of domestic and gender-based violence. The number thereof is 914.

The Domestic Violence Unit of the Ministry also offers a survivor advocates program by trained social workers who offer emotional support and crisis counseling to survivors of such forms of violence.
Safe houses and shelters are also available across the country to survivors of domestic violence, and there are also legal and psychosocial services available to survivors.
Speaking with this publication in the presence of one of her parents, a 13-year-old said she found the exhibition to be very timely.
“I think it is quite good to raise awareness, because if you don’t do it, people might take advantage; and persons would not care about it if you don’t focus on those people who are in danger,” the teenager said.
Commenting on the theme ‘You ask for it’, she said it is nor right, in her opinion.
“Because I once went to an exhibition; I can’t remember where, but persons were showing the kind of clothing they were wearing when it happened. Some were wearing their school uniforms; some were wearing nurse’s clothes and even clothes that you would wear when you are going to church, and they were still molested.”
‘Asking for it’ which concluded on Thursday, also highlighted that victims of sexual violence are not only persons who might have been in what some may refer to as a vulnerable place.
“It is not only if someone is walking the streets in the night or so; it can happen in homes, it can happen in the schools, and even workplaces as well,” Ward said, while advising persons who may know of someone who is a victim of sexual of related forms of violence to use the hotline number 914 to report any form of abuse.
Reports of sexual abuse can also be made at any of the Social Services Ministry’s offices and at police stations.