29/04/2025
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 2025
SLP Women’s Organization: “How Dare You, Guy Joseph.”
The Saint Lucia Labour Party Women’s Organization (SLPWO) is disappointed and utterly appalled by the shameful comments made by former MP Guy Joseph, who haughtily dismissed the government’s $250,000 initiative to combat period poverty as “a waste of money.”
How dare he.
How dare he belittle the pain, shame, and struggle of girls who stay home from school because they cannot afford sanitary products. How dare he insult the dignity of mothers who have had to improvise with rags, tissue, or nothing at all because their families couldn’t spare a few dollars for pads. How dare he call compassion “wasteful.”
His words were not just stupid—they were cruel. They were laced with ignorance and soaked in disrespect. This is not politics as usual. This is a blatant attack on the humanity of women and girls across Saint Lucia.
Period poverty is not a made-up issue. It is a quiet crisis. It steals confidence, opportunity, and health. It forces our daughters to choose between their education and their dignity. It has nothing to do with the level of development of a country or its standard of living. Advanced developed countries like Scotland, New Zealand, and Canada are leading the way in fighting this injustice. But here at home, Guy Joseph mocks it—as if it is something to laugh at, as if our pain is a punchline.
Let us be clear: this initiative led by the Prime Minister is about restoring dignity. It is about protecting health. It is about giving every girl an equal chance, no matter how poor her family is. To insult this effort is to insult every girl who has suffered in silence, every mother who has sacrificed, and every teacher who now stands ready to help.
But Mr. Joseph didn’t stop there. He questioned the integrity of educators—the very people who care for our children daily. He smeared them with the same brush of disrespect, as he has done with our nurses, our doctors, and now, our schoolgirls.
Let us not forget: this is the same man who once proudly defended building ten schools for his wife’s project, using government resources with a smile and a shrug. When it suited him, public funds were sacred. Now, when they serve the most vulnerable girls in our nation, he cries foul. That’s not just hypocrisy—it’s a betrayal.
This cannot go unanswered. This must not be another moment we let slip by.
To the women of Saint Lucia—especially in Castries South East—this is your call to rise. If you love your daughters, your nieces, your sisters—if you believe that every child deserves dignity and a chance to thrive—then you must speak now.
We will not let Guy Joseph define who we are. We are not weak. We are not invisible. And we are certainly not ashamed.
We demand better—from him, from the United Workers Party, and from anyone who seeks to score political points rather than protect our children.
To Allan Chastanet: your silence speaks volumes. And we are listening.
We reject the ignorance. We reject the sexism. We reject the hypocrisy.
Guy Joseph has disrespected us all. And we will respond—not with hatred, but with power. The Power of the ballot box, the Power of women who are no longer silent. The power of mothers, daughters, and sisters who are standing up—for dignity, for justice, for our future.
We are not going back.
We are rising and moving forward together!
END
