Stay safe and get home safe­ly.

This was the ad­vice from Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon to the women work­ing at the su­per­mar­kets and man­u­fac­tur­ing plants around this coun­try.

In re­cent times at­tacks against women have come to the fore.

Gopee-Scoon al­lud­ed to the sit­u­a­tion as she de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the su­per­mar­ket as­so­ci­a­tion’s award cer­e­mo­ny held on Sun­day.

“More than ever es­pe­cial­ly with the turn of events more re­cent­ly we ex­tend a spe­cial heart­felt thanks to all of those women at the su­per­mar­kets who are cash­ing, fill­ing the shelves do­ing or­ders and even all of them in the man­u­fac­tur­ing plants and so on do­ing three hour shifts stay safe, get home safe­ly,” Gopee-Scoon said.

Gopee-Scoon al­so laud­ed the su­per­mar­kets for keep­ing the coun­try fed dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“To­day we can look back in March and April and hap­pi­ly say that there was no short­age of food in Trinidad and To­ba­go the lo­cal sup­ply chain worked very, very well,” she said.

At the award Tara Bal­dah was giv­en a Long Ser­vice Award for her con­tri­bu­tions.

In 1986 Bal­dah in part­ner­ship with her broth­er Seer­am start­ed Eaton Su­per­mar­ket on Mau­si­ca Road, D’Abadie.

It lat­er re­lo­cat­ed to the East­ern Main Road in D’Abadie.

Seer­am passed away in March..

The is­sue of the safe­ty of women in the work­place was al­so raised this morn­ing when the In­ter­na­tion­al Labour Or­gan­i­sa­tion held a we­bi­nar ti­tled Cre­at­ing a Post-pan­dem­ic fu­ture of work in the Caribbean.

Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Con­gress of Labour An­dre Lewis told the we­bi­nar that steps need to be tak­en to ad­dress abus­es.

Lewis said the sit­u­a­tions were height­ened dur­ing the pan­dem­ic be­cause of the re­stric­tions put in place to stop the spread of the virus.

“I want to call for an end to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, an end to sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and abuse, an end to child abuse, yes and an end to sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, these are frontal is­sues that as as peo­ple we must ad­dress,”Lewis said.

“Cer­tain­ly be­cause of the lock­down one of the un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences of these mat­ters has been an in­crease in these is­sues as peo­ple are more kept to­geth­er against their will at home and we know the so­cial chal­lenges we have had so I want to put that front and cen­tre to be ad­dressed,” he said.