Bo­bie-Lee Dixon

The fir­ing of three fe­male of­fi­cers from the Guyana Con­stab­u­lary, be­cause they be­came preg­nant dur­ing their two-year pro­ba­tion pe­ri­od, was a top news high­light in re­cent weeks in Guyana.

It sparked pub­lic out­rage, caus­ing women's rights ac­tivists and groups to stage protests call­ing for their re­in­state­ment. With the City Con­stab­u­lary com­ing un­der this much fire, the three fe­male of­fi­cers were re­in­stat­ed on Au­gust 6.

The sack­ing of the of­fi­cers came af­ter the chief con­stab­u­lary of­fi­cer, An­drew Foo said they were in breach of the law. His ac­tion was de­fend­ed by su­per­in­ten­dent Lau­rel Git­tens, who is at­tached to the train­ing de­part­ment of the City Con­stab­u­lary.

Ac­cord­ing to Git­tens, the Con­stab­u­lary's reg­u­la­tions stip­u­lat­ed that a mem­ber has a pro­ba­tion­ary pe­ri­od of two years, and dur­ing their time of re­cruit­ment, it is high­light­ed women mem­bers are not sup­posed to be found preg­nant.

In a me­dia re­port she was quot­ed as say­ing: "We ask our fe­male ap­pli­cants not to be­come im­preg­nat­ed dur­ing that pe­ri­od which puts a bur­den on our or­gan­i­sa­tion. The City Con­stab­u­lary is a para­mil­i­tary or­gan­i­sa­tion, with two-third of mem­bers be­ing fe­males. And we are not ex­tend­ed in the large ca­pac­i­ty, in com­par­i­son with the Guyana De­fence and Guyana Po­lice Forces."

She was adamant that the ac­tion was not dis­crim­i­na­to­ry in any­way.

But Com­mis­sion­er of the Women and Gen­der Equal­i­ty Com­mis­sion, Nicole Cole and Leader of the In­de­pen­dent Par­ty, Mark Ben­schop, said it was in fact a clear case of dis­crim­i­na­tion. Ben­schop said it was a vi­o­la­tion of ba­sic hu­man rights while Cole sat­ed that such a pol­i­cy or reg­u­la­tion should nev­er be en­forced as it in­fringes on the rights of women.

She said al­so bear­ing in mind that Guyana was a sig­na­to­ry to the Con­ven­tion on Elim­i­na­tion of all forms of Dis­crim­i­na­tion Against Women (Cedaw), the sack­ing of the of­fi­cers be­cause of their preg­nan­cies were in breach of that.

She be­lieved the pol­i­cy was one of pure dis­crim­i­na­tion that stemmed from the colo­nial days and was adamant it should be re­viewed.

T&T ac­tivists speak

Weigh­ing in on the is­sue, hu­man rights and LGBT ac­tivist, Col­in Robin­son of the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (Caiso), said: "First of all, it is in­ter­est­ing to note that the George­town City Con­stab­u­lary is made up of two-thirds women. Hu­man rights oblig­a­tions aside, it would just seem com­mon sense and good busi­ness prac­tice for an or­gan­i­sa­tion with such a work­force to have a dif­fer­ent pol­i­cy on preg­nan­cy.

This one, Guyanese tell me, dates to the 1800s. If men got preg­nant, there'd be all kinds of work­place ac­com­mo­da­tions for it.

"Cedaw, the UN con­ven­tion on dis­crim­i­na­tion against women, which Guyana has rat­i­fied, seeks to en­sure that preg­nan­cy isn't used to un­fair­ly de­ny women em­ploy­ment. And it seems that's ex­act­ly what hap­pened. If, as news re­ports say, preg­nant re­cruits have the op­tion of tak­ing preg­nan­cy leave, why weren't these women sim­ply of­fered that up front?

Say­ing you're a para­mil­i­tary or­gan­i­sa­tion is like our army in T&T say­ing the Na­tion­al Work­place Pol­i­cy on HIV doesn't ap­ply to them and they are still go­ing to test peo­ple and re­ject them," Robin­son rea­soned. He said our poli­cies need to pro­vide eq­ui­table ac­cess to em­ploy­ment for every­one, whether they are four feet, eight inch­es tall, left-hand­ed, can get preg­nant, or use a wheel­chair.

"At the end of the day women ought to be rea­son­ably be able to com­plete or to ter­mi­nate preg­nan­cies, and not be pun­ished for ei­ther. I'm pleased that the na­tion­al gov­ern­ment has an­nounced it is re­view­ing the mat­ter and look for­ward to the out­come.

"At the end of the day, if we tru­ly val­ued the work of rear­ing and rais­ing our na­tions' chil­dren, these women would not have to choose be­tween em­ploy­ment and preg­nan­cy."

Hu­man rights lawyer­Danielle Mc Clashie said...

"Well, clear­ly this is an is­sue that de­serves a lot of out­rage, but there is a very sound le­gal ar­gu­ment that should make what­ev­er ac­tivism planned eas­i­er and more ef­fec­tive.

"In any case, since the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights (UDHR) wasn't men­tioned in the ar­ti­cles writ­ten on this is­sue or the orig­i­nal let­ter, I've in­clud­ed the spe­cif­ic vi­o­la­tions here that can go to­geth­er with the Cedaw."

Mc­Clashie point­ed to ar­ti­cles 12, 16, 22, 23, 25,28 and 29 of the UDHR, to ar­gue how in fact this ac­tion could be seen as an in­fringe­ment on hu­man rights. (See side bar on Page B33)

Nata­ki Kerr, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er, Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment said: "In re­la­tion to the mat­ter, T&T is al­so a sig­na­to­ry to the Cedaw Con­ven­tion but we al­so have the Ma­ter­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Act, which re­al­ly seeks to pro­tect women dur­ing their preg­nan­cy, in­clud­ing mak­ing pro­vi­sions for them to vis­it their doc­tors and not lose any pay for the time off. This is one of the safe­guards.

"Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the OSH Act al­so pro­vides for women in in­dus­tri­al sit­u­a­tions/ work­places dur­ing preg­nan­cy.

"The prob­lem here in T&T though, is en­force­ment and this is an on­go­ing is­sue."

Fol­low­ing the fir­ing and re­hir­ing of the three fe­male of­fi­cers, dis­cus­sion has al­ready be­gun on re­view­ing the con­tentious pol­i­cy.

More in­fo

Ar­ti­cle 12

�2 No one shall be sub­ject­ed to ar­bi­trary in­ter­fer­ence with his pri­va­cy, fam­i­ly, home or cor­re­spon­dence, nor to at­tacks up­on his ho­n­our and rep­u­ta­tion. Every­one has the right to the pro­tec­tion of the law against such in­ter­fer­ence or at­tacks

Ar­ti­cle 16

�2 Men and women of full age, with­out any lim­i­ta­tion due to race, na­tion­al­i­ty or re­li­gion, have the right to mar­ry and to found a fam­i­ly. They are en­ti­tled to equal rights as to mar­riage, dur­ing mar­riage and at its dis­so­lu­tion.

�2 Mar­riage shall be en­tered in­to on­ly with the free and full con­sent of the in­tend­ing spous­es.

�2 The fam­i­ly is the nat­ur­al and fun­da­men­tal group unit of so­ci­ety and is en­ti­tled to pro­tec­tion by so­ci­ety and the State.

Ar­ti­cle 22

�2 Every­one, as a mem­ber of so­ci­ety, has the right to so­cial se­cu­ri­ty and is en­ti­tled to re­al­i­sa­tion, through na­tion­al ef­fort and in­ter­na­tion­al co-op­er­a­tion and in ac­cor­dance with the or­gan­i­sa­tion and re­sources of each State, of the eco­nom­ic, so­cial and cul­tur­al rights in­dis­pens­able for his dig­ni­ty and the free de­vel­op­ment of his per­son­al­i­ty.

Ar­ti­cle 23

�2 Every­one has the right to work, to free choice of em­ploy­ment, to just and favourable con­di­tions of work and to pro­tec­tion against un­em­ploy­ment.

�2 Every­one, with­out any dis­crim­i­na­tion, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

�2 Every­one who work has the right to just and favourable re­mu­ner­a­tion en­sur­ing for him­self and his fam­i­ly an ex­is­tence wor­thy of hu­man dig­ni­ty, and sup­ple­ment­ed, if nec­es­sary, by oth­er means of so­cial pro­tec­tion.

�2 Every­one has the right to form and to join trade unions for the pro­tec­tion of his in­ter­ests.

Ar­ti­cle 25

�2 Every­one has the right to a stan­dard of liv­ing ad­e­quate for the health and well-be­ing of him­self and of his fam­i­ly, in­clud­ing food, cloth­ing, hous­ing and med­ical care and nec­es­sary so­cial ser­vices, and the right to se­cu­ri­ty in the event of un­em­ploy­ment, sick­ness, dis­abil­i­ty, wid­ow­hood, old age or oth­er lack of liveli­hood in cir­cum­stances be­yond his con­trol.

�2 Moth­er­hood and child­hood are en­ti­tled to spe­cial care and as­sis­tance. All chil­dren, whether born in or out of wed­lock, shall en­joy the same so­cial pro­tec­tion.

Ar­ti­cle 28

�2 Every­one is en­ti­tled to a so­cial and in­ter­na­tion­al or­der in which the rights and free­doms set forth in this De­c­la­ra­tion can be ful­ly re­alised.

Ar­ti­cle 29

�2 Every­one has du­ties to the com­mu­ni­ty in which alone the free and full de­vel­op­ment of his per­son­al­i­ty is pos­si­ble.

�2 In the ex­er­cise of his rights and free­doms, every­one shall be sub­ject on­ly to such lim­i­ta­tions as are de­ter­mined by law sole­ly for the pur­pose of se­cur­ing due recog­ni­tion and re­spect for the rights and free­doms of oth­ers and of meet­ing the just re­quire­ments of moral­i­ty, pub­lic or­der and the gen­er­al wel­fare in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety.

�2 These rights and free­doms may in no case be ex­er­cised con­trary to the pur­pos­es and prin­ci­ples of the Unit­ed Na­tions.