Gail Alexan­der

Bring the pep­per spray leg­is­la­tion and the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress will sup­port it - but the par­ty still has con­cerns about the An­ti-Gang bill be­ing de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate on Tues­day morn­ing.

And there still isn’t equal­i­ty of pay for women, a gen­der pol­i­cy, or pol­i­cy against sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in the work­place.

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised those is­sues at Mon­day night’s UNC vir­tu­al re­port, which fea­tured a spe­cial plat­form of fe­male speak­ers mark­ing yes­ter­day’s In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who not­ed re­ports of a 70-year-old woman be­ing raped, called for Gov­ern­ment to le­galise the pep­per spray use to help “... your daugh­ters, moth­ers, sis­ters… at least give women some­thing to hold in your hand.”

“It may not kill but it might de­lay some at­tack – if you se­ri­ous about help­ing women bring the pep­per spray law," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi's said the pep­per spray pro­pos­al will be brought to Cab­i­net this week.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment’s An­ti-Gang bill be­ing de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate to­day was some­thing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment on­ly brought out when their back “is to the wall.” She said while there are crim­i­nals, the pro­posed bill would break con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions on lib­er­ty, de­pri­va­tion of prop­er­ty and due process.

"That (An­ti-Gang) law was there so long and not a per­son was con­vict­ed with it, so you ma­m­aguy peo­ple cry­ing croc­o­dile tears in the Sen­ate on this," she said.

“You see their pri­or­i­ty? But not for the pep­per spray law…a fool­ish min­is­ter say it more dan­ger­ous than a gun! The non­sense these dead­beat min­is­ters talk!"

She ques­tioned what had hap­pened to the gen­der pol­i­cy.

“Where’s the pol­i­cy against sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in the work­place ... (and this is need­ed for men too). What about equal­i­ty of pay? Noth­ing done!"

Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave women two pieces of ad­vice, “Get up and get – don’t wait for hand­outs. And by hook or crook: get your ed­u­ca­tion.”

Knock­ing Gov­ern­ment's state­ments on In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day, she said the Prime Min­is­ter spoke of women in terms of "groom­ing" and "golf cours­es.”

"The most of­fen­sive state­ments about women ... you call for re­spect for T&T yet have none for women.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said T&T’s pan­dem­ic is the PNM. Say­ing the UNC would not be shut up, she added, “We’ll be in your faces night and day, we won’t al­low you a free pass!”

She com­mend­ed ac­tivists do­ing march­es peace­ful­ly af­ter re­cent mur­ders.

“The ac­tivism which has arisen – don’t let it die."

Trash­ing News­day's ed­i­tor and a re­cent ed­i­to­r­i­al against In­dia re­gard­ing vac­cines, she said T&T had his­tor­i­cal ties with In­dia well be­fore In­de­pen­dence. Per­sad- Bisses­sar ques­tioned why News­day was breach­ing diplo­mat­ic chan­nels and hadn’t writ­ten ed­i­to­ri­als against Venezuela or Chi­na.

Com­pa­nies putting prof­its over work­ers - Jear­lean

UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John, who not­ed women los­ing jobs and be­ing dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed in the pan­dem­ic's eco­nom­ic fall­out, said large com­pa­nies in oli­garchic arrange­ments are still de­clar­ing su­per-nor­mal prof­its.

“… So is prof­its be­fore peo­ple!”

She ques­tioned the lat­est COVID vac­cines ex­pect­ed for T&T - 33,600 which would on­ly cater for 15,000 peo­ple

“At the rate we’re go­ing, we go dead from old age. It will take 14 years to vac­ci­nate the whole of T&T. They find it much eas­i­er to run T&T lock­down! And now you might need a vac­cine pass­port, if you don’t have a card that says you got the vac­cine you have to stay here.”

MP Kadi­jah Ameen al­so knocked Gov­ern­ment's at­ti­tude to­wards women.

“You Kei­th Row­ley are a poor ex­am­ple to boys and men in this coun­try. Your words en­cour­age vi­o­lence against women! You, as a leader, must be more re­spon­si­ble to en­cour­age pro­tec­tion of women.”