Geisha Kow­lessar

Women must de­mand more for them­selves and en­sure they are treat­ed equal­ly by their part­ners, says Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin.She was speak­ing at yes­ter­day's com­mem­o­ra­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day 2013, themed "The gen­der agen­da: Gain­ing mo­men­tum", at City Hall, Port-of-Spain.

The min­is­ter, who de­scribed her­self as a "re­al woman with no frills," said she had the needs, de­sires and wants of any oth­er woman.Al­leyne-Top­pin al­so ad­vised women to take con­trol of their sex­u­al lives, say­ing: "When there is no con­dom, ask for one or bet­ter yet, pro­vide your own."We can see ev­i­dence of how tra­di­tion­al gen­der roles con­tribute to a num­ber of the chal­lenges that we as women face in our search for and es­tab­lish­ment of self.

"Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, some of us of­ten lack con­trol over our sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive habits which in turn en­gen­ders a lack of self-es­teem and con­fi­dence," Al­leyne-Top­pin added.On the is­sue of HIV/Aids, she said some stud­ies sug­gest­ed women who head­ed house­holds lacked ex­po­sure to self-em­pow­er­ment ac­tiv­i­ties and mod­ules which con­tributed to their dis­em­pow­er­ment.

Say­ing women liv­ing with HIV/Aids were de­serv­ing of the same rights, op­por­tu­ni­ties and treat­ment, Al­leyne-Top­pin added: "We are so dri­ven by the stig­ma at­tached to HIV/Aids we of­ten for­get that peo­ple liv­ing with the dis­ease are peo­ple too."She said since slav­ery no group had been so mar­gin­alised and dis­crim­i­nat­ed against as those liv­ing with HIV/Aids.

Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh said for men to be prop­er fa­thers they must first be­come moth­ers."A man can­not be a fa­ther un­less he be­comes a bit of a woman and dis­plays the char­ac­ter­is­tics and ten­den­cy of a woman," he added.