Women learn about their rights
THEY came in droves to the Jamaica Conference Centre on March 7 – Kingston women, and a few men, all to hear about their rights and the challenges they face as women.
At the end, it was obvious that those who left, left armed with a plan, to cement better futures using programmes like the NIS and NHT schemes available to them.
The rally, put on by the CEDAW Advocacy Committee (includes the Jamaica Household Workers Association, Women’s Media Watch, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Women Working for Progress, Women’s Resource and Outreach Centre, Child Development Agency, Panos, UNIFEM, Combined Disabilities Association and the Association of Women’s Organisations in Jamaica), took the form of messages, skits and much information available at booths, which, among other things, told them about their rights to days off; to being part of the NIS scheme; to maternity leave and to overtime pay. Every woman there participated – the disabled, the household workers, the vendors, and all those in the service, agriculture and retail sectors who needed the information.
It’s a fact that many women and girls in these sectors are either ignorant of or denied access to the economic benefits due to them, and in many cases, employers are lax with signing their workers up for such things as NIS and NHT benefits. Guest speaker, the Jamaica Association of Local Government Officers (JALGO’s) general secretary Helene Davis-Whyte, encouraged the women to not be afraid to ask about their rights, to go and sign up to the NIS and NHT schemes, and to continue to recognise that women have come a far way, from the reality of the past where men dictated almost every aspect of their lives. Here, CEDAW promoters do a skit which outlined women’s benefits with the NIS, NHT and CEDAW
-PC
