Women Empowerment and Gender Equality in Guyana

8/6/2019 Women Empowerment and Gender Equality in Guyana

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UNDP GUYANAUnited Nations Development Programme

(592) 226 4040/8/9 - [email protected] - www.undp.org.gy U

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Women Empowerment and

Gender Equality in Guyana:

What About it?

Preamble

A human rights approach todevelopment brings elements of equity in the process of nationsmaturing through participation and

inclusiveness. Guyana, adopting thenotion of human development usinghuman rights approaches has come along way in its turbulent growth cyclesince its independence in 1966. Asearly as the 1970’s, and before theBeijing Conference, womenempowerment mainstreaming andprotection began to unfold in Guyana.Prominent female figures ingovernment and public life, strong

advocacy through the NGOs/CSOsmovements etc., were criticalcomponents of women’s development taking shape, while igniting a broaderdevelopment debate. Later,empowerment as a mechanism forachieving gender equality wascatalyzed; examples are the signingand ratification of the CEDAW andestablishment of the Women AffairsBureau in 1981. More recently, efforts

at a rights based approach towomen’s’ development has beenconcretized through initiatives such asthe Constitutional, Women andGender Equality Commission, theDomestic violence Act 1996, amongother things.

No 2, October 2010

In the same way women empowerment isused synonymously with gender equality,this note argues that empowerment hasbeen used as a platform for gender

equality, specifically on issues wherewomen are traditionally challenged . Usingvariables of sex to speak approximately ongender and its parity, complemented bykey indicators on results, this informativebrief highlights key areas of success onwomen’s development in Guyana. It drawsattention to developments in two criticalareas of human choices and proposessome response to promote further genderequality through working to crystallize

gains, strengthen institutional approachesfor debunking socialization and norms that foster gender inequality, and support at the operational level, issues of immediateimportance in the local context.

Decision-making and Political

Representation

From a period where female representation,at the highest level of institutional decision-

making was ad hoc to legislative provisionsfor representation as a right; today the

electoral system of Guyana mandatesgender representation of at least one-thirdfor parties submitting lists of candidatesfor National and Regional elections, apolicy adapted since the 2001 elections.This has been instrumental in elevatingwomen’s participation in decision-makingat the highest level.





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The Guyana UPR submission 2010provides evidence that show “womennow comprise 22 of the 65 Membersof Parliament 1 and 8 of the 18members of the Cabinet.”2 Parliamentary representation of women is diverse across ethnicity andage, though the representation maynot be representative to the nationaldynamics.

The gender ratio according to thepopulation census 2002 is one-to-onewith very marginal populationgrowth. Given the populationdynamics, Renshaw 2006 findswomen’s representation to be low.Albeit the facts, the transition from ad

hoc to legally binding rights approaches is where the deduction of a partial success story can bepronounced. Today, women continue

to hold key public spaces, particularlyin the judiciary: the Director of PublicProsecutions; The Registrar of theSupreme Court; The Registrar of theLand Registry; and, the Registrar of the Deeds Registry. The Chief

1 in the 9th Parliament.

2 This representation does not always translate to concreteequality in decision-making though it is progress onempowerment. Despite no empirical evidence on thecorrelation between women in Parliament and passing of legislation and policy progress on women’s issues, moreConstitutional and other provisions are being made topromote gender equality, for example Women and GenderEquality Commission, the Trafficking in Persons Act 2005,Domestic Violence Act 1996, Marriage (Amendment) Act2006, Sexual Offences Act 2009, Age of Consent Act 2006,Maternal and Child Health Strategy 2008-2012, Women of Worth Finance scheme (fund of G$500 million) for singlemothers, extended maternity allowance for workingwomen, inter alia. More recently, however, Guyana slippedin rank on the gender gap index of the World EconomicForum 2010 – from 35 in 2009 to 38 in 2010 of 134countries respectively, mainly due to weakness in economicparticipation (labour force participation and wage gaps of women in high positions).

(ag), the Principal Magistrate and 9 of the16 magistrates are female; 5 of the 17Judges in the High Court are female aswell. These developments are necessarythough not sufficient in the grand schemeof women empowerment and genderequality.

Human Development, MDGs, and

Poverty

The Human Development Report 2009

ranks Guyana 53rd

of 109 countries on theGender Empowerment Measures (GEM)and 96th of 155 countries on Gender-related Development Index (GDI). The2003 MDG report indicated that theobjective of “Eliminating genderdifferences in primary and secondaryeducation, preferably by the year 2005,and in all other levels of education no laterthan 2015 (MDG goal 3), has been met though not the overall goal.” The 2007

report updated that “there has been aslight decline in the number of womenenrolled in secondary and tertiaryeducation from 1996-2003 and in wagedemployment from 1992-2001; while thereare some improvements in the number of seats held by women in the NationalParliament from 1992-2006. On MDG goal5 the 2007 report highlighted that maternal mortality has been decliningfrom 1991-2006; while the number of

skilled personnel attending birthsimproved from 2000-2006. Gradually,overall empowerment of women andequality in gender is positively improving.

If one is to use the baseline of theEconomic Recovery Programme 1989 toassess some of the results according tohow entitlements are distributed bygender, there would be a few gains to





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report. Poverty rates have declinedfrom 43% in 1992 to 36.1% in 2006.Per capita income is rising (US$737.9in 2001 to US$1298.6 in 2009) whileinequality3 in consumption has beendeclining from 0.44 in 1992 to 0.35 in2006. Increased access by women toeconomic opportunities has resultedin declining unemployment andincreased consumption, thoughoverall labour force participation

may not be at desirable levels. Thelast census (2002) revealedunemployment nationally at of 11.67% (16.77% in 1980), wheremales experienced 10.14% (15.13%in 1980), and females 15.15(22.0 in1980).

Today, the Women and GenderEquality Commission has equal payas one of its key areas of focus. The

Women of worth Network willbenefit from $500 millionprogrammed for single mothersbetween the ages of 18 to 60 yearsold who have difficulty accessingfinance for small and microenterprise. The Low CarbonDevelopment Strategy targets theexpansion of SME for vulnerablegroups including women as a priorityarea to receive benefits as they

accrue. Unpaid domestic work, whoseburden falls disproportionately onwomen and in practice constitute aninvisible subsidy to the economicsystem has not been a significant part of the discussions locally on human

Inequality in income was measured using the ginicoefficient in 1999 Household Income and Expendituresurvey and was reported to be 0.421 (0.413 giniconsumption).

development, poverty nor genderinequality.

Education and Health

Expanding people’s choices are essentialto human development Two of the moreimportant choices are that of educationand health. Education expenditures havebeen expanding in Guyana, and thoughthere are no disaggregated statistics of expenditure by gender the results speak for themselves. Despite challenges ineducation quality the MICS report 2006shows that early childhood educationaccess between males and females aremarginally different 47.7% males against 50.4% females, so too is the case for entryinto primary school (enrolled in grade 1)79.9% males as against 77.4% females,and reaching grade five - 98.3% males ascompared to 95.3% females. Primaryschool completion rates are similar too,71.4% males aganist 71% for females. Forthose transitioning to secondary schoolthe difference is marginal: 65.4% males inrelation to 68.6% reported for females.Gender parity (index, GPI) in primaryschool was 1:1 in 2000 as compared with1.0 in 2006; in secondary parity existed in2006 as a 1:1 ratio.

Some of the key developments in healthshows women are living longer lives inGuyana, life expectancy among womenimproved from 66.1 years in 2003 to 69.6in 2007 as compared with males 60 and 63years respectively. Earlier we sawimprovements of skilled attendant at delivery: 85.6% in 2000, and 83.3% in2006; while maternal4 mortality rate

4 A National Policy for Maternal and Neonatal Mortality Reduction hasbeen developed.





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declined from 170 in 2000 to 112.5 in20075. Contraceptive prevalence isstill fairly low: 37.5% in 2000 and34.2% in 2006; while antenatal careaccess marginally increased from80.9% in 2000 to 81.4% 2006,according to the MICS 2006.

Immediate Concerns and potential

responses

Having raised salient areas of progress there are continuouschallenges in attaining the level of women empowerment that meetsboth the necessary and sufficient conditions for gender equality. Someof the uphill battles are:

• Domestic violence continues to be avexed issue despite all the effortshitherto. Government statistics 2008

indicated that there were over 3,600cases of domestic violence reportedin 2007 as compared to 1,708 in2006. Help & Shelter (an NGO)evidence show 1296 perpetrators of violence against women (andchildren) in 1999, 5087 cumulativeover the period 1999 to 2006; whilevictims for the same period totaled6414. Noteworthy, is the persistent under-reporting of domestic violence

issues. The United States CountryReport on Human Rights Practices for2007 flagged domestic violence inGuyana as "widespread". Insanally2006 pointed out that “… in spite of the legal framework domesticviolence continues to be seen aspersonal, private or family related.”

5 Source: Ministry of Health Statistical Bulletin 2007.

Potential Response: Working towardsdebunking norms and socializationassociated with fostering domesticviolence is critical to any response to thischallenge. Conflict resolution must therefore take on small units of focus that can treat such issues. A coalition of thewilling must also follow in the path of initiatives such as the Men Empowerment network to arrest the situation. Thispresents an opportunity to expand work

with Faith Based Organization who areessential to this intervention and must beco-opt. Strengthening the coalitionbetween human and discipline services(such as the police and prisons etc.) arecritical too. Capacities can be built forsome of the aforementioned to work withperpetrators, and intensify men and boysinvolvement.

Economic participation and pay : According

to the BoS 2002, “78% of the maleworking-age population carry out economic activities for pay or areeconomically active. On the other hand,only 34% of women of working age wereinvolved in economic activities for pay. Tohighlight the issue even further the BoSindicated “The slight undulation within the

participation of women ….is congruent with

the unusual way in which women enter and

exit from labour force participation,

sometime…due to child-bearing and rearingor marriage…some women enter the labour

force for the first time in their thirties,

forties, or even later, while others are

retiring, and then move into and out again

several times in the course of their lives”.





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Potential Response: Enhancing work with the private sector, especially inthe areas of corporate socialresponsibility (which also helps withconsidering unpaid care work) andinclusive models for pro-poor growthare key avenues for improvinggender equality and womenempowerment. The DENMOR modelis already a good local example of how this can be done. Additionally,

the poverty alleviation-environment nexus promoted through the LowCarbon Development Strategypresents the right context for suchactions.

• Information and data quality on

gender development is deemed weak.Strengthening data collection ongender equality is essential fortargeting and evidence based

interventions in areas of deficiency.

Potential Response: Support from theinternational community for the next census can be an important featurehere, complemented by anintensification of statistical capacitystrengthening of core agencies suchas the Labour and Human ServicesMinistry, and the Ministry of HomeAffairs as health information systems

and education are ahead of the curve.

Author: Mr. Marlon Bristol,UNDP Guyana, Poverty ReductionAnalyst

The analysis and policy recommendations

of this paper do not necessarily reflect the

views of the UNDP, its executive board or

its member states.

Women Empowerment and Gender Equality in Guyana

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