MP for Central Kingstown St Clair Leacock on Monday, speaking on BOOM FM doubled down on his assessment of poverty in St Vincent and the Grenadines and spoke to the lengths to which persons will now go to survive in particular women.
“Well, that’s a reality that all of us know. And if we want to be like the proverbial ostrich and bury our head in the sand, then it’s up to us. Let me start with the most naked expression of that, and I hope I could be as respectful. I was in Greigg’s about four weeks ago in the company of Israel Bruce and a young lady who was speaking to us said unapologetically that she trust a man a piece of sex, three months ago and things so hard he can’t pay, and I know he wants more, but he can’t face me”.
Leacock said this is something that exists not over the last two years, three years, but it has been there for a little while and it is growing and it gets worst he stated.
” I’ve heard people boast that they can have sex for a pack of Shirley Sweet Biscuit, but that is to highlight how naked the poverty is in St Vincent and the Grenadines. There are households that have no income at all, absolutely none. And the people who may go forward and say that there are some circumstances in which mothers would encourage daughters to have relationships of a kind that will be able to support the house and this thing called love is out of the door”.
“I’m a politician and a public person and I’m in the spaces and places where these conversations take place and it is repeatedly expressed. And I challenge those who doubt me that this is a Vincentian phenomenon. Now the fact that it is expressed to be a phenomenon and may be of a moral kind does not mean it’s a priority consideration for the average Vincentian, because they have to go about their daily lives for sustenance”.
Leacock said it has become like homicides, where people have become numb and not even affected anymore.
“Or another one and they move on to the next conversation, In other words, it becomes part of the national fabric, and that’s undesirable. And I’m saying that because the vulnerable people are our young women who must take time out and address it”.
