Dear Editor,
It was disappointing to read the letter from the Women and Gender Equality Commission (WGEC) seeking ministerial intervention for the “anomaly” of the all-male GWI management team “to be immediately corrected” (SN, October 9). Disappointing because the WGEC (i) reduces the complex issue of gender equality in employment to pure arithmetic, irrespective of variables such as women’s choices, (ii) thinks it best to address the GWI issue through public criticism and by going above the agency’s head, instead of directly engaging it, (iii) weaponizes (rightly) Guyana’s constitution and its commitments under global agreements, but only to defend the job opportunities of, at best, a few educated women, while ignoring to similarly fight for the socio-economic rights of the mass of Guyanese women, and (iv) exposes its ineffectiveness in fulfilling its full constitutional mandate.
My disappointments lie mostly at (ii), (iii) and (iv). Among the fourteen direct functions with which the constitution tasks the WGEC (under Article 212R), the two that matter here are at (g) educate and monitor employers…on desirable employment practices in relation to women, and at (j) recommend and promote the implementation of legislation and the formulation of policies and measures so as to enhance and protect the status of women. These functions require direct employer-commission engagement and partnering, rather than high-handed attacks in the press.
In this regard, a highly effective approach is that used by the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission through its Equality Duty mechanism (details on its website).
An Equality Duty is an obligation placed on public bodies to proactively embed equality in their routine operations. Routine operations include staffing (such as hiring, compensation, and promotion) and those outward-looking (its service delivery and its procurement practices). To ensure that public bodies meet this duty, the UK rights commission offers guidance but is also legally empowered to set rules, exercise oversight, and impose penalties.
An equality duty can be of several types other than gender-related. We can also have an ethnic equality duty (for the ERC, say) and a disability equality duty.
In practice, such a system works by ensuring public entities (i) take responsibility for integrating best practices on equality into their operations, (ii) collaborate with the rights commission on crafting measures specific to their organization, and (iii) are regularly monitored and guided by the commission in a structured manner.
This approach, as I pointed out to the WGEC, in my unacknowledged letter to it last year, “transforms attitudes and actions within public agencies from reactive to proactive, from cosmetic to systemic, from one-time to all-time, and from merely prevention of negatives to promotion of positives.”
Had the WGEC routinely interfaced with the GWI (and other employers, for that matter), violations could have been prevented or corrected. Should the commission see the need for specific powers to compel compliance, it should so recommend to the National Assembly. But much can be achieved as is.
On my third grumble above, we can ask the WGEC one question, prompted by its reference to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): has it ever engaged with this or the previous government on the several SDGs that directly affect women? Yes, SDG#5 speaks to gender equality. But what about SDG#1 (no poverty) and SDG#3 (decent health and well-being)? Which gender mostly bears the pain of poverty and deficient health care?
Ineffective execution of constitutional mandate (my fourth and final complaint) afflicts all our rights commissions and the ERC. To be sure, the WGEC has a five-year strategic plan (2013-2018). A good start, but only a start. In my letter last year to the commission, I explained how the very Equality Duty mechanism can be used to operationalize several of the strategic objectives in the plan by including them as part of Equality Duty agreements with targeted public agencies.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe
