Akash Samaroo
As the International Labour Organisation (ILO) continues to highlight the pay gap between men and women, this country’s Gender and Child Affairs Division says financial imbalance is contributing significantly to the murder of women and girls.
Ahead of today’s observance of International Women’s Day (IWD), officials were asked about the biggest threat facing T&T women. The short answer, murders. Data shows that 137 women and girls were killed in the last three years, many as a result of intimate partner violence (IPV).
Anne-Marie Quammie-Alleyne, coordinator of the National Policy on Gender and Development, said the real danger starts after the police are informed of a possible threat to a woman’s life.
“If the survivor does not file charges because of reasons and she goes back home that is a threat, because some women can’t make it on their own because of their financial shortages because they may have children and are unemployed so she has to depend on the perpetrator, so where does she go?”
A 2021 World Bank study showed that as of 2019, 58 per cent of women between the ages of 15 to 64 are actively employed.
Quammie-Alleyne explained that the services such as a 24-hour domestic violence hotline (800-SAVE), counselling from NGOs, and even a Gender Based Violence Unit within the T&T Police Service (TTPS), cannot guarantee the safety of women and girls.
“A woman, a survivor, has to make that first move to get out of the situation. When she does, the services are there to catch her. However, we have to also understand the empowerment struggle of a woman after she’s been down to be able to fight back.
“It’s difficult. You may want to but what about the children? You may want to but all your money is tied up in the house, so there are a lot of factors involved and whatever we put in place, that final piece is the power and control, the financial imbalance is what drives that hesitance.”
Deputy Director of the Gender and Child Affairs Division Amilcar Sanatan said financial empowerment is high on their agenda through the introduction of a gender transformative framework.
“A thrust of our division right now is to look at social and economic autonomy in the fight of gender inequalities. Yes, she is a survivor but if she does not have the economic conditions then what is she surviving? An economy too? We need to provide options for survivors to have future opportunities for education that is available to them and we believe in entrepreneurship too.”
Sanatan said the division will be participating in a training programme with the United Nations on gender sensitive budgeting.
ILO reported recently that “gender imbalances in access to employment and working conditions are greater than previously thought and progress in reducing them has been disappointingly slow in the last two decades.”
According to the ILO, “the jobs gap is particularly severe in developing countries where the proportion of women unable to find a job reaches 24.9 per cent in low-income countries.”
But the gap in pay between men and women continues to be an issue as well. Quammie-Alleyne said even with equal academic qualifications, men still earn more.
“Where there is some equality is in the public service where there is less tension, so it’s a work in progress and maybe within the next decade we will have some improvement.”