Kali­fa Clyne

The lo­cal chap­ter of the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion for Fem­i­nist Re­search and Ac­tion (CAFRA T&T) is ex­press­ing con­cern over what it calls Gov­ern­ment's "con­tin­ued vac­il­la­tion" over the ap­proval of a na­tion­al gen­der pol­i­cy.

A draft gen­der pol­i­cy is cur­rent­ly be­fore Cab­i­net. In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion said thor­ough con­sul­ta­tions on the gen­der pol­i­cy had been done more than ten years ago and added that the po­si­tions of all groups were well known.

It added: "While we re­spect the ab­solute right of in­di­vid­u­als to be­lieve, and to fol­low in their own lives, what­ev­er re­li­gious teach­ings they choose, it is the du­ty of the State to pro­mote and pro­tect all hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms.

"These in­clude the rights of cit­i­zens to at­tain the high­est stan­dard of sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health and to live a life free of dis­crim­i­na­tion, co­er­cion and vi­o­lence. An ap­proved gen­der pol­i­cy sig­ni­fies our coun­try's as­pi­ra­tion to work to­wards a so­ci­ety in which men and women are able to live equal­ly ful­fill­ing lives.

"It means recog­nis­ing that men and women of­ten have dif­fer­ent needs and pri­or­i­ties, face dif­fer­ent con­straints, have dif­fer­ent as­pi­ra­tions and con­tribute to de­vel­op­ment in dif­fer­ent ways."

The re­lease said het­ero­sex­u­als, as well as peo­ple who de­fined them­selves as les­bian, bi­sex­u­al, gay or trans­gen­der, were born free and equal in dig­ni­ty and rights.

It said con­tin­ued dis­crim­i­na­tion against peo­ple be­cause of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion makes a mock­ery of their con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and flies in the face of the ide­al of this coun­try's na­tion­al an­them, which says, "here every creed and race find an equal place."

It added: "Laws that crim­i­nalise in­di­vid­u­als on the ba­sis of their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der iden­ti­ty are anachro­nis­tic and breach in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man-rights law (note the re­cent le­gal chal­lenge to our dis­crim­i­na­to­ry im­mi­gra­tion law).

"By re­in­forc­ing stig­ma, these laws not on­ly un­der­mine ef­forts to fight the spread of HIV/Aids, they al­so fu­el vi­o­lence."

The group al­so raised con­cerns over the is­sue of women's right to abor­tion.

"In spite of leg­is­la­tion pro­hibit­ing the pro­cure­ment of an abor­tion, every year 2,000-3,000 women in T&T are treat­ed at pub­lic hos­pi­tals af­ter un­safe abor­tions.

It said: "The fact that the Gov­ern­ment is vac­il­lat­ing on ap­prov­ing even the min­i­mal­ly agreed-on is­sues of le­gal abor­tion in cas­es of rape or in­cest is un­con­scionable. No woman should be oblig­ed to con­tin­ue an un­want­ed preg­nan­cy."

The re­lease said no re­li­gious be­lief or per­son­al opin­ion, no mat­ter how deeply held or wide­ly shared, could ever jus­ti­fy de­priv­ing an­oth­er hu­man be­ing of his or her ba­sic rights.