As Trinidad and To­ba­go com­mem­o­rat­ed In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day yes­ter­day, there were calls for Cari­com lead­ers to in­crease pa­ter­ni­ty leave as well as im­ple­ment leg­is­la­tion to in­cor­po­rate fair treat­ment to fa­thers when it comes to co-par­ent­ing.

The calls came from Rhon­dall Fee­les, pres­i­dent of the Fa­thers As­so­ci­a­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Bring­ing greet­ings to all men yes­ter­day on In­ter­na­tion­al Men’s Day, Fee­les in a so­cial me­dia post said, “We are men and in that sim­i­lar­i­ty we stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty. I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to­day to put for­ward re­gion­al­ly to all heads of state through­out our re­gion some sug­ges­tions that I be­lieve can up­lift and em­pow­er our men to­ward pos­i­tive trans­for­ma­tion.”

Fee­les said there was the need to in­crease pa­ter­ni­ty leave across the Caribbean to 30 work­ing days and a min­i­mum of 20 stay away from work days with a max­i­mum of ten days work­ing from home where it may be pos­si­ble.

He said such a move would com­bat parental alien­ation and en­sure men get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be part of their chil­dren’s lives from ear­ly on. Fee­les al­so called for prop­er co-par­ent­ing poli­cies to pre­vent fa­thers from be­ing ex­clud­ed.

“There must al­so be a min­i­mal ac­cess or­der of 12 days award­ed to non-cus­to­di­al par­ents where shared par­ent­ing can­not work.

“Draft­ing and pas­sage of laws that de­ter per­sons from pa­ter­ni­ty fraud. In an age of DNA test­ing. Pre­sump­tion of pa­ter­ni­ty by way of mar­riage and sign­ing of the birth pa­per by the pre­sumed fa­ther should no longer be utilised to de­ter­mine pa­ter­ni­ty par­tic­u­lar­ly for the mak­ing of main­te­nance or­ders,” Fee­les said.

With re­gards to men’s and boys’ health, Fee­les said there was a need to ex­am­ine the cur­rent health­care sys­tem with the in­tent to cre­ate work­able frame­works for men and boys.

“Ex­am­ine the root caus­es for the high per­cent­age of men at our men­tal health fa­cil­i­ties across the re­gion (in Grena­da we were told 80 per cent of those pa­tients are men); De­vel­op a strat­e­gy to re­duce the high per­cent­age of male sui­cides across the re­gion. The Min­istry of Health Trinidad stat­ed that from the pe­ri­od be­tween 2019 to 2021 (260) males com­mit­ted sui­cide, 79.8 per cent of the sui­cides record­ed over that pe­ri­od.

Since then to present day 2023, the sui­cide rate in men and boys is per­ceived to have in­creased ex­po­nen­tial­ly. In­tro­duce Com­mu­ni­ty De­stress­ing Cen­tre for men, well main­tained fa­cil­i­ties that cater to holis­tic needs of a man...spir­i­tu­al, phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and eco­nom­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of men and boys,” he said.

Fee­les added that so­ci­ety must place more fo­cus and at­ten­tion on the well-be­ing of men in a bid to strive and move past some of the ills plagu­ing the coun­try.

“We re­mind our lead­ers and women folk across the re­gion that a so­ci­ety of men op­er­at­ing at a low ca­pac­i­ty is ac­tu­al­ly a detri­men­tal, coun­ter­pro­duc­tive and more dan­ger­ous thing for women and oth­er men in our so­ci­ety. Let us em­brace this op­por­tu­ni­ty and com­mit to mak­ing the lives of the men around the world a more mean­ing­ful one. Let us make men aware that their lives do mat­ter and we see their con­tri­bu­tions dai­ly to our so­ci­ety,” he added.