A mes­sage from Sharon Row­ley, wife of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, on the oc­ca­sion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2022:

As a woman, moth­er and wife, I join with the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and more specif­i­cal­ly, with our Trinidad and To­ba­go sis­ter­hood, in cel­e­brat­ing “In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day.”

To­day is our day. It is the day when we can re­flect, not on­ly on our his­tor­i­cal march on the jour­ney for gen­der par­i­ty, but on the cul­tur­al, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal achieve­ments of our women. It is the day when we all should take a mo­ment to pause, cel­e­brate, and re-en­er­gise as we con­tin­ue to stead­fast­ly raise aware­ness and lob­by for par­i­ty.

This year, as we con­tin­ue to move to­ward Plan­et 50-50 and equal­i­ty for all by 2030, we are guid­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions’ cam­paign theme, #Break­The­Bias. This theme helps us to add an­oth­er chap­ter to our sto­ry of con­fronting gen­der-in­equal­i­ty, bi­as­es, stereo­typ­ing, and dis­crim­i­na­tion. His­tor­i­cal­ly, our world has been one of male-pro­vi­sion and fe­male-sub­mis­sion and while that yoke of de­pen­den­cy has been lift­ed in many coun­tries it re­mains as a fet­ter to women’s ad­vance­ment in many so­ci­eties.

Unit­ed Na­tions da­ta show that, in some coun­tries, over sev­en­ty per­cent of women face var­ied forms of vi­o­lence dur­ing their lives, while in coun­tries such as ours, even though our per­cent­ages may not be as high, we con­tin­ue to see ris­ing sta­tis­tics in ar­eas of do­mes­tic abuse, traf­fick­ing, cy­ber­bul­ly­ing and, even mur­der. It is im­per­a­tive that we join forces to re­duce these num­bers.

We must, how­ev­er, ac­knowl­edge that we are see­ing the light. Our cru­sade for our voic­es to be heard from the din­ner ta­ble to the board­room is be­ing re­alised, and I can sense that more pos­i­tive changes are com­ing.

Let us, as women, now pre­pare to meet the chal­lenges of the post-pan­dem­ic world, and the evolv­ing 21st cen­tu­ry with a new mind­set. Let us con­tin­ue on that jour­ney to gen­der equal­i­ty, gen­der eq­ui­ty and the em­pow­er­ment of all our women, a jour­ney which we must share, in par­i­ty, with our males, and along which we shall take our daugh­ters and our sons.

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