MINISTER of Social Protection, Amna Ally told a United Nations forum on Monday that despite the challenges affecting the region, CARICOM continues to progress in achieving regional and international goals for the empowerment and advancement of women and girls.
SCLAN pledges its support for hurricane ravaged countries
Twelfth CARICOM Triennial Woman Awardee calls for support to reduce the scourge
of violence against women and girls
Ms. Shirley Pryce received the Twelfth CARICOM Triennial Award for Women during the Official Opening of the 38th Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community on 4 July 2017, in St. George’s Grenada.
This is the charge from the United Nations Secretary-General Special Envoy(UNSE) for HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean, Dr. Edward Greene, in his message on the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2017, being observed on 8 March 2017.
Titled Let us together do what it takes to #be bold for Change, the UNSE also called for the “…support of programmes intended to make the Caribbean the first region in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV”.
Following is the full text of the message.
The call comes on the heels of the establishment of a Caribbean First Ladies/Spouses Network (CARIFLAN) to champion the ‘Every Caribbean Woman Every Caribbean Child’ (ECWECC) initiative.
Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Hon. Gaston Browne, told the Forum of CARICOM First Ladies and Spouses of Heads of State and Government that legal sanctions and mandates by themselves would not yield lasting results, but must be reinforced by other factors. These included reliable data; coordinated policies and programmes; men and boys in the response; and promoting evidenced-based solutions.
CARICOM Heads of the Government have agreed to champion the Every Caribbean Woman Every Caribbean Child (ECWECC) initiative and other activities focussed on addressing violence against women and women’s and children’s health.
The ECWECC initiative revolves around opportunities to improve the lives of women, children and adolescents. It focuses on four priority issues: teenage pregnancy; violence against women and children (including trafficking in persons); cervical cancer and mother to child transmission of HIV (MTCT)in the Caribbean.
I commence with a heartfelt recognition of the plight of the young high-school girls of Chibok, Borno State, abducted in April of this year, the two teenaged Indian girls raped and hanged in Uttar Pradesh in May and the 25 year old pregnant Pakistani woman stoned to death in May for marrying against her family’s wishes. The poem of Mahadai Das of Guyana, My Finer Steel Will Grow, aptly describes despair and hope as we confront the issue of gender-based violence. I will read the poem in order to keep the memory of the girls and this young woman alive.
(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Ms. Marion Bethel, the eleventh recipient of the CARICOM Triennial Award for Women, in her acceptance speech, struck a resounding note in her call to governments and civil society “to commit wholeheartedly to zero tolerance for violence against women and girls” and to the “pursuit of a fifty percent representation of women in Parliament”.
(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Twenty-Sixth Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) got underway on Wednesday at the CARICOM Headquarters in Georgetown Guyana. The Council is being chaired by Minister of Health and Social Services from Montserrat, Hon. Colin Riley and is being hosted with support from the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Women and the Caribbean Development Bank.