RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Doc­tor­al stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies In­sti­tute of Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies, Ali­cia Roberts, who spent over a decade re­search­ing women in the labour move­ment, has chal­lenged trade unions to be­come more proac­tive in pro­tect­ing vul­ner­a­ble women, in­clud­ing those who are de­nied the priv­i­lege to join trade unions.

Speak­ing at a Tues­day Talk dis­cus­sion ti­tled “Ex­ploita­tion of Women: The Strug­gle Con­tin­ues,” host­ed by the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), Roberts said the ap­palling work­ing con­di­tions faced by women in var­i­ous sec­tors, in­clud­ing casi­nos, stores, fast food restau­rants and se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, con­tin­ue to ex­ist as busi­ness own­ers be­come more un­scrupu­lous.

Ex­ploit­ed by their em­ploy­ers in low-pay­ing jobs, Roberts said there is noth­ing that stops the trade union move­ment from go­ing in­to these sec­tors and reach­ing busi­ness own­ers to make them see how their ex­ploita­tion is dis­rupt­ing fam­i­ly life.

Since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Roberts said many women had been forced to work from home, jug­gling their sec­u­lar work, do­mes­tic re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and their chil­dren’s school­ing. Yet in 2023, with the open­ing up of the coun­try af­ter COVID-19, she said many of these women are be­ing forced to go back out to work in their re­spec­tive or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“If they don’t, they are fired. And if they do go back to work in their or­gan­i­sa­tions, their fam­i­ly life suf­fers, Roberts said.

“We have women who lost their jobs from re­trench­ment and to find a job now in these harsh times as a woman is dif­fi­cult, be­cause it is eas­i­er for men to get jobs than women. There is still ex­ploita­tion and women still have that prob­lem,” she added.

MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah agreed that some women still do not have ba­sic work­ing rights, in­clud­ing ma­ter­ni­ty leave. He said the hu­man traf­fick­ing is­sue was a ma­jor one.

“Giv­en the vir­tu­al slav­ery that young women are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, their pass­ports are tak­en away and they’re held pris­on­er and made to work. It is hor­rif­ic in terms of the ex­tent of phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and men­tal abuse. Some of these vic­tims are teenagers and even when some got res­cued, they were put in­to a home and again, they were faced with abuse,” Ab­du­lah said.

He said Crime Stop­pers ex­ists and peo­ple had the op­tion of re­port­ing crime anony­mous­ly. Ab­du­lah ques­tioned whether the pub­lic was sen­si­tised enough about the plight of these women.

Mean­while, for­mer UNC ex­ec­u­tive Ra­mona Ram­di­al said in 2011 when she was an MP, two Columbian girls es­caped from a house in Chase Vil­lage and with the help of a trans­la­tor, they re­vealed how they were conned in­to com­ing to Trinidad to work as ed­u­ca­tors, on­ly to be held hostage and forced to work as pros­ti­tutes in­stead. Ram­di­al said many peo­ple knew the bars and oth­er busi­ness­es which front­ed for the hu­man traf­fick­ers but said be­cause of the rogue el­e­ments in the Po­lice Ser­vice, many cit­i­zens were afraid to come for­ward.