KINGSTON, Jamaica – If Opposition senator Sophia Frazer- Binns had her way, Jamaicans would stop using the word “squatters”.

“I am saying, Mr President, that perhaps, as of today, the seventh of February 2020, we could start by using a word that gives some pride of place, a term perhaps like informal settlers,” Frazer-Binns, who is the People’s National Party’s (PNP) spokesperson on land and housing, suggested in the Senate on Friday.

“But the term squatters, in and of itself, is derogatory and demeaning to these persons,” she added as she delivered her annual State of the Nation debate presentation.

She said that the majority of people who live in the informal settlements did not take possession by force.

“They were led on, either with permission by the church or the owner, or somebody who purported to be the owner, or they went on because they had nowhere else to live,” she said.

“Most of these people, when you talk to them, they are simply trying to find somewhere to lay their head. The question then is, why must we treat them in such a derogatory way? Why do we treat them in a way that is so offensive? The very use of the word squatter is derogatory,” she stated.

“As a government we have a duty to ensure that our actions and our utterances do not further discriminate, separate, or in some cases impoverish some of these people in informal settlements,” she said.

She said that the time has come for the Government to deal with the issue of informal settlements in a real way. She also noted that she has been meeting with some of the settlers in the Bull Bay community who could be affected by the construction of the proposed new highway that will run through St Thomas to Portland.

Balford Henry