Focus on women to move society forward, says PM’s advisor
DR Glenda Simms, the prime minister’s senior advisor on gender and development, says Jamaica can only become a productive, decent and peaceful society when women and girls, who account for more than half the island’s population, are empowered and afforded equal rights.
Simms also said, that the cycle of gender-based violence and poverty would never be broken unless the ‘situation of women’ is seriously addressed.
“The equality rights and empowerment of women and girls must become the essential cornerstones of the social, political, economic and spiritual transformation that is needed at this time if Jamaica and all other developing societies are to make the dynamic leap.,” Simms said.
Speaking at Thursday’s launch of the 2007 edition of Carimac Times at the University of the West Indies, Simms said that one of the main issues faced by majority of the island’s women is poverty.
“This is because gender inequality distorts income distribution, access to credit, land ownership, family responsibilities within the private sphere and the need for relevant support to meet the unique realities of women’s lives in public sphere,” she said.
She pointed to a study by Professor Barbara Bailey of the Centre for Gender Studies at the UWI, which showed that women were underpaid, required more qualification than men to get jobs and that the unemployment rate for women was twice that of men.
Twentieth century liberation theologists, said Simms, sought to change the lives of the poor of Latin America by encouraging a heightened awareness of the socio-economic structures that caused the social inequalities and advocated for active participation of the poor in changing those circumstances.
“In these contemporary times, we need to adopt the same strategies and focus on the gender inequalities that force far too many women and their children to live in poverty,” Simms said.
The 2007 edition of Carimac Times which was produced by final year print journalism students at the university, highlighted some of the issues facing women, such as abuse and poverty and how some of those depressed women rose above their situation.
