The AFC has formulated and adopted a policy document for its women’s arm, aimed at giving female members a greater push into political activism.
“We have seen women throughout the country take on leadership roles at other levels but when it comes to the political level, it is something they shy away from,” AFC parliamentarian Cathy Hughes told Stabroek News yesterday.
Adoption of the policy document was among the decisions taken at the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, held last Saturday at Whim Village, Corentyne.
Hughes said the policy statement of the ‘Women For Change’ supports the AFC’s philosophy and encourages women at all levels to run for elective office. “They have a voice that is still very distinct and we encourage them to use it,” she added.
She assured that the AFC leads by example and so the NEC has space reserved for women, in keeping with its gender-conscious decisions. Options include councillors, parliamentarians and even at the “highest level”—a suggestion of the presidency.
More input from women is vital, she said, to bridge the gender gap and the divide between government and the opposition. “We have an innate ability to compromise if we had more of that we won’t have all this hostility,” she said. “We want to encourage women to step beyond,” she added.
Another highlight of the NEC’s meeting, the party has said, was the adoption of the Berbice declaration, which outlines the AFC plan for the development of Berbice. That county is regarded as a traditional stronghold of the governing PPP/C but lost support there to the AFC in 2011.
A public meeting was later held at Whim where issues specific to Berbice were addressed. Those included the sugar industry, drainage and irrigation, job creation, drug abuse, suicide and other social ills. The party said that while in Whim, AFC leaders took the opportunity to meet with religious leaders from the Christian, Hindu and Muslim communities and visited a Hindu Temple.
The team also visited the Canje area, where residents took the opportunity to highlight the myriad problems they face, including clogged drains and canals, corruption at the level of the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils, discrimination and abuses coming from regional officials, lack of programmes to address alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and unemployment.
Elderly residents also complained that they were being deprived of their National Insurance Scheme (NIS) benefits.
