SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@

guardian.co.tt

Head of In­sti­tute for Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Dr Gabrielle Ho­sein says while women in T&T have achieved progress— T&T has not yet achieved gen­der equal­i­ty. She made the com­ment in ob­ser­vance of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day which will be cel­e­brat­ed to­mor­row,

In re­sponse to ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia, Ho­sein said the ac­com­plish­ments of women have come through both in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive ef­forts.

“We have cre­at­ed a so­ci­ety which is in­creas­ing­ly tol­er­ant of women’s rights, have im­proved the shar­ing of care among women and men in fam­i­lies, have con­tin­ued to crack glass ceil­ings in busi­ness, me­dia and pol­i­tics, and are con­tin­u­ing to share the mes­sage that men should be al­lies in ad­vanc­ing gen­der jus­tice,” she said.

Ho­sein is con­cerned that those achieve­ments do not cut deep enough in­to the fab­ric of so­ci­ety to im­pact the is­sues that plague women and girls in T&T.

“We have not yet achieved gen­der equal­i­ty in busi­ness, pol­i­tics, re­li­gious lead­er­ship, land own­er­ship, av­er­age in­come lev­els, con­trol over our bod­ies and fer­til­i­ty, and free­dom from sex­u­al vi­o­lence. And we con­tin­ue to live in a so­ci­ety where men re­pro­duce a cul­ture of vi­o­lence in com­mu­ni­ties across the na­tion and we con­tin­ue to grow up in homes where at least one in five of us will ex­pe­ri­ence child sex­u­al abuse,” she said.

She said ed­u­ca­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the world of work do not end the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of male dom­i­na­tion- and what women want is not to be like men but to be women- how­ev­er, they choose, with­out that be­ing a ba­sis for their ex­pe­ri­ence of greater pover­ty, un­count­ed labour, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and ex­clu­sion from de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

“There is still work to do: ap­prove the na­tion­al gen­der pol­i­cy and af­firm state com­mit­ment to ad­vanc­ing gen­der equal­i­ty, ap­prove the na­tion­al strate­gic ac­tion plan to end gen­der-based and sex­u­al vi­o­lence and af­firm the na­tions com­mit­ment to end­ing vi­o­lence against women and girls, and sup­port a na­tion-wide cam­paign to high­light men’s role in chal­leng­ing pa­tri­ar­chal pow­er and priv­i­lege in or­der to cre­ate fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties in­vest­ed in peace, rights and eq­ui­table pow­er.”

Founder of Women of Sub­stance, To­ba­go, Oni­ka Mars be­lieves women have bro­ken through the bar­ri­ers in the work world to dom­i­nate. She said with the is­sue of gen­der-based vi­o­lence at the fore­front of most na­tion­al dis­cus­sion which she be­lieves is an ac­com­plish­ment for the women’s rights move­ment.

“Amend­ment of laws are be­ing dis­cussed, there are more women in pol­i­tics and more women are be­ing em­pow­ered to lead. A lot of women’s groups (such as Women of Sub­stance) are speak­ing out on sev­er­al is­sues re­lat­ed to women’s rights and are giv­en a lis­ten­ing ear. Women pas­tors are evolv­ing eg in the Methodist and An­gli­can Church­es,” Mars said.

Jo­han­nah Rae Reyes, of WOM­ANTRA, said T&T has made ad­vance­ments to­ward gen­der equal­i­ty be­cause there was no longer a choice to re­main the same. She said the fem­i­nist fore-moth­ers and oth­er al­lied move­ments are to be praised for their ef­forts so far.

But she said there is still con­cern about the way so­ci­ety and the gov­ern­ment pri­ori­tise the needs of women.

“We are al­so con­cerned with the way de­ci­sions are made about our lives and the gen­er­al lack of mean­ing­ful di­a­logue or for­mal mech­a­nisms be­tween women’s rights ac­tivists and the state; a re­la­tion­ship that has not changed very much over the past 50 years,” Reyes said.

She said the is­sues that need ur­gent at­ten­tion are women’s ac­cess to fam­i­ly plan­ning, in­clud­ing safe and af­ford­able ter­mi­na­tions free from stig­ma, le­gal pro­tec­tion for the LBTQ+ women from dis­crim­i­na­tion and ad­e­quate care for women and chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties.

WOM­ANTRA is host­ing a “Rights De­con­struct­ed: Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy on Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment” ex­hi­bi­tion at the Big Black Box on March Mon­day from 4 pm to 8 pm to dis­cuss how Gov­ern­ment can be more in­clu­sive and up­hold the rights of all cit­i­zens. The event is free to the pub­lic.