Fol­low­ing is the fi­nal part of a speech giv­en by Ver­na St Rose-Greaves, Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment, at a stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tion on the draft Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, St Ann's, on Wednes­day. The first part of the speech was pub­lished in yes­ter­day's T&T Guardian.

Labour and em­ploy­ment

The pol­i­cy recog­nis­es the crit­i­cal role of gov­ern­ment in pro­tect­ing the rights of work­ers, pro­vid­ing so­cial pro­tec­tion, and lay­ing down eq­ui­table pol­i­cy frame­works for en­tre­pre­neur­ship and busi­ness de­vel­op­ment.

Un­waged eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties, do­mes­tic and fam­i­ly life

The pol­i­cy will pro­mote the recog­ni­tion of un­waged and re­pro­duc­tive work, un­paid labour and do­mes­tic and fam­i­ly life arrange­ments, be­cause of their im­mense con­tri­bu­tion to so­cial well­be­ing and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, and en­sure that in­creased re­sources are al­lo­cat­ed to this sec­tor.

Agri­cul­ture and food se­cu­ri­ty

The pol­i­cy recog­nis­es Trinidad and To­ba­go's need to in­crease food se­cu­ri­ty, pur­sue rur­al de­vel­op­ment and prac­tise en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-sen­si­tive phys­i­cal and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment. Sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment will be an elu­sive goal un­less women's and men's con­tri­bu­tions to en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, preser­va­tion and man­age­ment are recog­nised and sup­port­ed.

The Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy will in­te­grate gen­der equal­i­ty goals in­to strate­gies aimed at in­creas­ing food se­cu­ri­ty

Macro-econ­o­my and trade

The process of de­vel­op­ment is mul­ti-faceted and has eco­nom­ic, so­cial, cul­tur­al and po­lit­i­cal di­men­sions of which gen­der is a fun­da­men­tal fac­tor. The pol­i­cy will pro­mote gen­der-re­spon­sive bud­get­ing across the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, and civ­il so­ci­ety. And it will forge links be­tween eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and plan­ning to trans­form the goals of macro-eco­nom­ic poli­cies to in­clude so­cial jus­tice and eq­ui­ty.

Lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance

Trans­par­ent and ac­count­able gov­er­nance de­pend on equal par­tic­i­pa­tion by men and women. The pol­i­cy will pro­mote equal­i­ty be­tween men and women in pow­er-shar­ing and de­ci­sion-mak­ing at all lev­els. It will pro­vide a frame­work for ac­tive, vis­i­ble mea­sures to sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease the num­ber of women in de­ci­sion-mak­ing and to utilise their tal­ents and skills as po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, diplo­mats, mem­bers of boards, lo­cal coun­cil­lors, etc.

So what is the way for­ward for us? The Gov­ern­ment has the po­lit­i­cal will to put in place a na­tion­al gen­der pol­i­cy. How­ev­er, the pol­i­cy must cap­ture the in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive goals and as­pi­ra­tions of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

This is why we have con­sult­ed wide­ly. Un­der the Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment we es­tab­lished a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee to re­view the pub­lic com­ments and fi­nalise the Draft Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy which was tabled in Par­lia­ment in Au­gust 2009.

The Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee is made up of a wide cross sec­tion of per­sons rep­re­sent­ing a cross sec­tion of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. The Gov­ern­ment will mea­sure all its poli­cies, plans, pro­grammes and ac­tiv­i­ties by the prin­ci­ples of gen­der equal­i­ty and eq­ui­ty.

It will seek to pre­vent and ad­dress dis­crim­i­na­tion against any cit­i­zen on the ba­sis of their gen­der, and will man­date all pub­lic and pri­vate agen­cies to do the same. This is con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice. Some 70 coun­tries across the world present­ly have na­tion­al gen­der poli­cies. We need to be aware that while the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy has been lan­guish­ing for over a decade, a num­ber of oth­er Caribbean coun­tries and over­seas ter­ri­to­ries have put in place na­tion­al gen­der poli­cies and ac­tion plans.

I be­lieve that a na­tion­al gen­der pol­i­cy is crit­i­cal in or­der to set out the Gov­ern­ment's gen­der equal­i­ty pri­or­i­ties across the so­cial, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal spheres; build co­her­ence among all stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment, the pri­vate sec­tor, labour and civ­il so­ci­ety; and se­cure the nec­es­sary re­sources to ad­dress the crit­i­cal gen­der is­sues fac­ing the na­tion.

The Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment al­so recog­nis­es that the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the Draft Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy re­quires a re­new­al of com­mit­ment by all stake­hold­ers to gen­der equal­i­ty. I en­cour­age you to un­der­take this con­sul­ta­tion with a sense of pur­pose, ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment as I know you will. And I urge you to ne­go­ti­ate your dif­fer­ences with a spir­it and de­ter­mi­na­tion to build con­sen­sus for the greater na­tion­al good.

As I look at the room and I see so many NGOs and peo­ple from oth­er agen­cies, I know there have been peo­ple who are in the field and trench­es who want to see this thing hap­pen. There are al­so those who have some con­cerns about what the pol­i­cy will rep­re­sent. I have read a speech, we have talked for the morn­ing but there are two ele­phants in the room we are not men­tion­ing.

One of the rea­sons this pol­i­cy did not go for­ward be­fore, I be­lieve, is there are two is­sues we did not treat with and I think we can­not con­tin­ue if we do not en­gage around those is­sues, be­cause it will not make sense. One has to do with the is­sue of sex­u­al­i­ty, the oth­er one has to do with ter­mi­na­tion of preg­nan­cy. We as a min­istry at the Min­istry of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment, our ap­proach is a rights-based ap­proach. Hu­man rights must be at the core of what­ev­er we do. So while we may not agree on is­sues, let us keep in our fo­cus the rights of cit­i­zens in this coun­try.

Let's re­spect peo­ple's rights as cit­i­zens, the rights of cit­i­zen­ship and all that comes with it. Let us try to be re­spect­ful of our de­lib­er­a­tions. Let us step back when things get too heat­ed. Let us re­mem­ber that each of us in Trinidad and To­ba­go de­sires what is best for us. The Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy had the po­ten­tial to make us proud to be part of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to make us proud, to say I am Trin­bag­on­ian.

When we sang this morn­ing, we did not have all the mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment but the words, the mu­sic the thoughts and feel­ings our an­them stirs up means some­thing for us. Some­times we must re­mind our­selves and each oth­er that we too, are a nur­tur­ing peo­ple with the en­riched tra­di­tion of look­ing out for each oth­er. Our cul­ture is em­brac­ing and in­clu­sive.

We have a rich mix of so many as­pects of the globe. We have come to­geth­er in times of na­tion­al pride, and share our cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions with our neigh­bours. We cry for each oth­er's loss, hug strangers in ju­bi­la­tion at a foot­ball or crick­et match; just any rea­son to cel­e­brate on the street.

Our his­to­ry has been one of strug­gle, and var­i­ous forms of prej­u­dice and dis­crim­i­na­tion. We protest against un­fair­ness in equal­i­ty and in­jus­tice for our­selves and oth­ers with­out apol­o­gy for slav­ery and in­den­ture­ship sys­tems. We fought so many sys­tems of op­pres­sion based on racial in­equal­i­ty and we must con­tin­ue to fight against it.

We bat­tle for the rights of work­ers against ex­ploita­tion, eco­nom­ic sys­tems based on class and in­equal­i­ty and we must con­tin­ue to strug­gle against the ug­ly that is so easy for us to be­come. The Na­tion­al Gen­der Pol­i­cy will help us to take yet an­oth­er step for­ward in our ef­fort to dis­man­tle all forms of gen­der in­equal­i­ty and all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion.