While acknowledging progress made on some issues, a United Nations committee on women has expressed concern about women’s limited access to justice in Guyana, reported widespread discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals, and whether the root causes of trafficking in women were being addressed.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) met in New York on Tuesday to begin its consideration of the combined seventh and eighth periodic reports of Guyana. Minister of Human Services and Social Security, Jennifer Webster, led the Guyanese delegation, which also included Education Minister, Priya Manickchand, Presidential Adviser on Governance, Gail Teixeira, Permanent Representative of Guyana to the United Nations, George Talbot, and other officials. CEDAW monitors the compliance of states with the Convention on the Elimina-tion of All Forms of Discri-mination against Women.
Webster presented Guyana’s report which covers 2004 to 2010. According to a UN report on the meeting, Webster said that Guyana is considering proceeding in line with the recommendations of the Human Rights Council’s 2010 Universal Periodic Review. She noted that the country has acceded to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and ratified the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Their Families. “Since Guyana was last reviewed much has taken place and much progress has been made whilst some old challenges persist and new challenges have emerged,” Webster said.
The delegation told the committee that despite cuts in development assistance due to the global economic crisis, ingrained prejudices towards women and cultural barriers confronting them, Guyana had rooted the empowerment and protection of women firmly in its national policies, legislation, educational and social programmes, as well as health initiatives. Webster said that through a mix of progressive laws and programmes to stamp out domestic violence and gender-based discrimination in the workplace, ensure women’s representation in Parliament, prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and provide low-interest loans to buy homes and run businesses, among other things, Guyana had made headway in improving the lot of women.
Unswerving
“The Government of Guyana remains unswerving in its commitment to honour its obligations under the Convention and will expend every effort with available resources — human, financial and technical — to ensure that we continue to make progress for all our people, especially our women and children,” the minister said. She declared that government is tackling widespread gender-based violence in partnership with non-governmental organizations. Webster cited the “Stamp it Out!” campaign, the 2010 Sexual Offences Act, which introduced stiff penalties for offences, “safe zones” for victims and expedited judicial procedures for those seeking redress as well as a new Men’s Affairs Bureau and the recently launched “It’s Our Problem, Let’s Solve it!” campaign which would sponsor public discussion in communities where violence was particularly acute.
Webster also said that legislative and administrative steps have boosted the proportion of women in non-agricultural paid employment, as well as their representation in Parliament and Cabinet-level posts to more than 30%. She added that Guyana’s 2011 Millennium Development Goals progress report showed notable gender-equality achievements in education, curbing infant and child mortality, and stemming poverty, thanks in part to the government’s commitment to earmarking 25% of the budget for the social sector. The minister also noted that the report highlighted key challenges in maternal health. In terms of this, she said that with just six obstetricians to attend 15 000 births annually and limited support from development partners to address that deficiency, the government had taken steps to recruit obstetricians from overseas while placing Guyanese doctors recently trained in Cuba in outlying regions of the country.
According to Webster, with donor funds poised to decline further, Guyana is worried about its ability to maintain programmes begun with external support so as to address communicable diseases affecting women and children in particular. She cited the programme to provide free antiretroviral treatment and prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV which has reduced mortality and improved the quality of life for HIV-infected people. “We don’t want to see those compromised due to a lack of resources,” she emphasized.
The minister also said that Guyana has achieved the third Millennium Development Goal, gender parity in primary and secondary education, and would continue to strive towards parity at the tertiary level. She also said that with government’s housing drive and low-income loans, more women, particularly single mothers, now owned property. The “Women of Worth” microcredit initiative gave women access to low-interest loans and microcredit facilities that enabled them to carry out small business projects in various fields, Webster added.
She also spoke on several other developments including the rising number of women working, the number of women in parliament, and the national priority to tackle the endemic culture of violence and widespread gender-based violence. The “It’s Our Problem, Let’s Solve it!” campaign would comprise community-led discussions in 17 targeted communities from July to November with the ultimate objective of creating a revised national action plan to end and prevent domestic violence, as well as a comprehensive communications strategy and a monitoring and evaluation framework, she said.
Since the lack of timely, accurate data made it difficult to assess efforts to advance women’s rights, the government in 2010 began to strengthen its national monitoring and evaluation systems, beginning first with the health and education sectors, and moving on to the social services and housing sectors, she said. “Some of the challenges which remain are the prejudices, ingrained cultural barriers and male attitudes in our society which are not easily dislodged,” Webster said.
Limited access
The Committee’s 23 expert members acknowledged the progress made, but expressed concern, among other things, about women’s limited access to justice, particularly in rural areas and the hinterland, slow implementation of the Convention and judicial reforms, reported widespread discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals, and whether the root causes of trafficking in women were being addressed.
They also voiced concern over the government’s ability to sustain programmes in light of reduced external aid, the absence of sex-disaggregated data, and contradictory information in the delegation’s report about women’s access to health care, the mass emigration of trained nurses and other health-care professionals, and the failure of rural courts adequately to address women’s concerns.
Fielding questions from the committee members, Manickchand, according to the report issued by the UN, said that government is doing its best to ensure proper implementation of the Convention’s articles. While it was difficult, and even clumsy, for the judiciary to invoke the Convention in its judgments, the treaty was well reflected in domestic legislation, she said. Regarding women’s access to justice, Manickchand said that six of Guyana’s 10 regions had legal aid services, which had previously only been available in Georgetown. The country’s topography made it challenging to provide access in all the regions, she said, pointing out that most of the regions had courts and that some of them sat daily while others sat only weekly. That was necessary for financial reasons, she said. Guyana’s legal system faced many challenges due to a lack of resources, which caused substantial delays in taking legal decisions, the minister contended.
Under further questioning, Manickchand said that the Guyana Legal Aid Clinic is run by a non-governmental organization but the government provided the entire sum it needs to function. In terms of limitations on the implementation of the Convention, she said the National Consti-tutional Commission had sought to provide two exceptions to the Convention’s implementation: Guyana would implement it as far as its resources would make that possible, and there would also be consideration of the socio-cultural environment.
Manickchand refuted the contention that discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals was widespread but conceded that the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community was not readily welcomed by the populace. She noted that the Government was consulting the people once again on lesbian and gay relations.
Meanwhile, Webster said that Guyana has legislation aimed at combating trafficking in persons and her ministry focuses on providing psychosocial, medical and economic support, as well as job training to victims while helping them reintegrate into society. The overall aim was to reduce poverty among victims of trafficking and vulnerable segments of society, she said, citing a government programme to aid single mothers, provide skills training for youth, and the “hinterlands” programme aimed at reducing poverty, especially in Amerindian communities. The 2005 Trafficking in Persons Act was stringently enforced, but as Guyana was a small country, few cases were presented for prosecution, Webster said.
Abortion
Several questions were asked on health care and Manickchand, in relation to abortion, said that Guyana had no data to suggest that the high maternal mortality rate resulted from that practice. Recently, there had been one reported death from an unsafe abortion and that had been in a private clinic, she said. The minister also said that while it would be naïve to imagine that some health-care service providers did not ask for money to deliver services that the Government intended to be free, there was no evidence that corruption was endemic to Guyana’s health-care system. She commended the public health care system but said that due to the geography of the hinterland, it was difficult to provide health-care services there. Guyana was offering health-care services to the best of its ability, but it had limited technical and personnel capacity to offer a full range, she said.
Meantime, Manickchand described corporal punishment in schools as “a very sensitive issue” and three government consultations had been held on that subject thus far.
With regards to women’s access to housing, Webster said that the Ministry of Housing had embarked upon an initiative to provide more houses for low-income families and many of the beneficiaries would be female single parents. Manickchand, responding to the question about discrimination against single women in housing, said that when the government had begun distributing housing lots, hundreds of thousands of people and thousands of families had been in need of a place to live. Therefore, housing lots had been given on a needs basis, and the housing needs of those with children had been deemed to be higher than those of a single person, she said. At the moment, demand for housing had decreased, so single women and female single parents were also receiving housing support, she added.
Webster reaffirmed that Guyana is committed to eliminating discrimination against women in all regards. Working in collaboration with civil society, donors, religious organizations, and non-governmental organizations, Guyana would continue to undertake steps and measures to ensure that it was compliant with the Convention, she said.
Silvia Pimentel, the Committee Chairperson and expert from Brazil, thanked the members of the delegation and encouraged them to work towards “a more comprehensive implementation” of the Convention. She also acknowledged the work of Desirée Patricia Bernard, a former expert member from Guyana who had been a “respected force” on the Committee.
