RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Now that elec­tions have been called, the Sin­gle Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SFATT) has reached out to all ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion, call­ing for com­mit­ments on leg­isla­tive changes and so­cial poli­cies af­fect­ing fa­thers, men, and boys in the coun­try.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, pres­i­dent and na­tion­al award re­cip­i­ent Rhon­dall Fee­les said the or­ga­ni­za­tion has is­sued let­ters of in­tent to meet with the gov­ern­ment, op­po­si­tion, and emerg­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Say­ing SFATT will re­main un­af­fil­i­at­ed with any po­lit­i­cal group but wants to hear each par­ty’s plans for ad­dress­ing the chal­lenges men face in so­ci­ety, Fee­les said: “We in­tend to high­light the in­equities faced by fa­thers and, by ex­ten­sion, men and boys in T&T.”

He added: ” We will pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for each po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty to out­line their com­mit­ments to ad­dress­ing the so­cial chal­lenges we have iden­ti­fied over the past decade and a half.”

Out­lin­ing SFATT’s pro­pos­als, Fee­les called for leg­is­la­tion for sub­stan­tial pa­ter­ni­ty leave, manda­to­ry pa­ter­ni­ty test­ing be­fore main­te­nance or­ders, and shared care and con­trol leg­is­la­tion for fit par­ents. He al­so called for laws on prenup­tial agree­ments, parental alien­ation, and parental child ab­duc­tion.

Fee­les said sin­gle fa­thers face ob­sta­cles in ac­cess­ing state hous­ing and grants.

“There is a per­ceived im­bal­ance in the is­suance of HDC hous­ing and state grants to sin­gle moth­ers ver­sus sin­gle fa­thers. We want com­mit­ments to ad­dress this dis­par­i­ty,” he ex­plained.

He not­ed that SFATT is al­so seek­ing pol­i­cy changes to ad­dress bi­as­es fa­thers face in the courts and so­cial ser­vices sys­tem.

In ad­di­tion to is­sues af­fect­ing fa­thers, Fee­les out­lined key ar­eas of con­cern for men and boys, in­clud­ing male sui­cide rates, home­less­ness, vi­o­lent crime, and ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“Male sui­cide has been an epi­dem­ic for the last decade. TTPS sta­tis­tics sug­gest that 84 per cent of sui­cide vic­tims an­nu­al­ly are male. We need so­cial strate­gies to com­bat this cri­sis,” Fee­les said.

He al­so called for the con­struc­tion of home­less sanc­tu­ar­ies for men to pro­vide shel­ter, skill train­ing, and em­ploy­ment as­sis­tance.

“The Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment’s sta­tis­tics con­firm that 94 per cent of home­less per­sons are male, yet there are no ac­tive shel­ters for them,” he added.

Say­ing vi­o­lent crime is an­oth­er ma­jor con­cern, Fee­les said: “For the pe­ri­ods 2022 and 2023, TTPS sta­tis­tics show that ap­prox­i­mate­ly 90.7 per cent of mur­der vic­tims were male. Of those, 55 per cent had no gang af­fil­i­a­tions. We need so­cial strate­gies to sen­si­tize males on their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties,” Fee­les said.

He al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for equal ac­cess to in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy, health, and lead­er­ship pro­grams for boys.

Fee­les high­light­ed the lack of shel­ters for mi­nor males be­tween 11 and 17, say­ing SFATT is fre­quent­ly con­tact­ed about place­ment for boys who can­not en­ter fe­male shel­ters.

He al­so called for an ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that re­moves the stig­ma around skills-based and life skills train­ing, as well as suc­ces­sion em­ploy­ment for MI­LAT grad­u­ates with­in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

“These is­sues are crit­i­cal to the fu­ture so­cial de­vel­op­ment of our na­tion. We look for­ward to pos­i­tive re­spons­es from every po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty vy­ing for lead­er­ship in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Fee­les added.