CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Dr Gabrielle Ho­sein, Head of the In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies is not pleased with the gen­der com­po­si­tion on the road map for T&T post-COVID com­mit­tee an­nounced by the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing at the post-cab­i­net news con­fer­ence Dr Row­ley said the 21-mem­ber team has been giv­en un­til the end of April 2020 to com­pile a rough draft on the post-COVID-19 Road Map. By the end of May 2020, the team is ex­pect­ed to sub­mit the com­plete plan.

But, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Dr Ho­sein said, “The Prime Min­is­ter’s team to pro­duce a road map for T&T post-COVID in­suf­fi­cient­ly in­cludes women at the ta­ble as if they are sim­ply in­vis­i­ble, un­qual­i­fied or ir­rel­e­vant.”

She added that it al­so in­suf­fi­cient­ly in­cludes civ­il so­ci­ety, and par­tic­u­lar­ly the women’s move­ment, de­spite the fact that women per­form the bulk of care work both in the labour mar­ket, as teach­ers and nurs­es, and in the home in their care of chil­dren, the aged and the ill.

Dr Ho­sein al­so raised is­sue with Sin­gle Fa­ther’s As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SFATT) Pres­i­dent Rhon­dall Fee­les’ ap­point­ment to the com­mit­tee as the sole Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tion (NGO).

She said, “Fee­les may rep­re­sent a busi­ness in­ter­est, men’s rights, or both. SFATT has no ex­pe­ri­ence in rep­re­sent­ing women’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties or re­al­i­ties, and no agen­da to rep­re­sent women’s in­ter­ests in a time when women are more vul­ner­a­ble in terms of pover­ty and vi­o­lence.”

She quot­ed an April 9 state­ment by the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al that called for women to be equal­ly rep­re­sent­ed in COVID-19 plan­ning and de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

Con­tact­ed on his ap­point­ment Fee­les said he would re­serve de­tailed com­ments af­ter meet­ing with the oth­er mem­bers of the com­mit­tee, but he said in the SFATT they have rep­re­sent­ed both men and women over the years.

He main­tained that his be­ing cho­sen was more than just his ac­tivism.

“I don’t think the on­ly per­spec­tive they go­ing to be look­ing at me for I be­lieve is on­ly through the Sin­gle Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion. As you and oth­ers will know I am the vice-pres­i­dent of the Au­to­mo­tive Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion. I have a vast amount of knowl­edge when it comes to busi­ness as well.”

He said he is all about serv­ing the coun­try and would bring a grass­roots per­spec­tive to the ta­ble.