The Na­tion­al Women’s League of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has is­sued a state­ment high­light­ing con­cerns about the lev­el of fe­male rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Cab­i­net re­cent­ly ap­point­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the League, on­ly five of the 24 Cab­i­net ap­point­ments an­nounced in­clude women, one of whom is the Prime Min­is­ter. The state­ment al­so not­ed that, among 32 to­tal gov­ern­ment ap­point­ments, six are women.

The League com­pared this to pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions, stat­ing that ten women served in gov­ern­ment in 2015, and eight in 2020.

The state­ment raised ques­tions about the ab­sence of a ded­i­cat­ed Min­istry of Gen­der and Child Af­fairs in the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion. 

It not­ed that un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM Gov­ern­ment, the min­istry was lo­cat­ed with­in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and fo­cused on the rights and wel­fare of women and chil­dren.

The League called for ei­ther the re­in­state­ment of the min­istry or the re­as­sign­ment of its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties with­in an­oth­er min­istry to en­sure the con­tin­u­a­tion of pol­i­cy de­vel­op­ment for women and chil­dren in Trinidad and To­ba­go.