Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
We're going to be discussing equal opportunities for women, politics, religion, and joining us here this morning, consultant Catholic Commission for Social Justice. That's Lila Ramdin. Good morning to you. Welcome to our show.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Good morning. Good morning.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Nice to have you with us here this morning. Well, a lot of discussion related to women, International Women's Day and of course, very necessary conversations. Our topic here is an interesting one, equal Opportunities for women.
It says politics, religion, but let's deal with it generally because there are some countries where you have issues and you can tell that women are always on the back foot, not necessarily given the kind of, of recognition that they should or some people think that they should. As a country, Trinidad and Tobago, how would you describe our progress in ensuring that there's a level playing field?
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Good morning to your viewers as well, and thank you for having me. We live in an era where, as we know, women still have not and girls, because the theme this year is for all women and girls rights, equality and empowerment across the board, including Trinidad and Tobago. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that God made man and woman to respect each other, to have mutual respect for each other, and to really use their gifts to build a better world. And sadly, as the saying goes, women hold up half the world, or as another writer says, see women and men as a bird with two wings.
The bird can't fly with one wing. And yet that is what's happening where achieving equality for women and girls, we know it, requires comprehensive approaches that address structural barriers that exist. We need to transform cultural norms. We're still in an era where in certain parts of the world, including parts of Trinidad, the cultural norm is male dominance. We have to get away from that. We have to create opportunities for women and girls, full participation across all spheres of life. And we know challenges remain because of our history. But history demonstrated meaningful change is possible through persistent multifaceted efforts. The path forward depends on recognizing gender equality not merely as a woman's issue, but as a fundamental human rights.
As I said in my article in the Guardian on Saturday, the empowerment of women and girls remains both a moral imperative and an economic necessity. If we want to build a stronger, resilient and just society here in Trinidad and Tobago, we need to do more at all levels. So we're looking at our legislation. Imagine you've seen that the Hindu Tamil Tiwari and the Hindu Women's group only now, after so many years of the Hindu Marriage Act, A marriage act that excluded women's profession. What does that say about the thinking of the framers of that legislation? Did they not think. Do they think that all women in the kitchen cooking. What about women who have. Even if they're in the kitchen, what is your profession? A homemaker. But that to exclude women's profession from an act of parliament is a clear sign that women's issues, and even in Trinidad and Tobago, are not always recognized as being important.
We need to look at how, in fact, our.
Our society treat women. But also we have to look at the intake. The dignity of the human person is the root of all human rights. And women also have to look at promoting their own dignity. I watch Carnival and I won't say too much about that, because anybody who watched the TV and watch Carnival would know what I'm talking about that we have. If we're going to promote equality. Equality means responsibility as well. And by saying, your body is your own and you can do what you want with it. In my view, as a Catholic, and I'm not the only religious person who say this, we have to look at the critical issues that could stand as a barrier to full equality. But also we need to look at. So that's one issue. But there are issues of gender inequality that intersects with other forms of discrimination, like women and girls with disabilities. Look at Veera Bhajan. No, she had no arms. But if you look at some of Veera's videos of how she can use. She does yoga to strengthen her feet. This woman is amazing. She could do things with her feet that other people can't. And she had to go to court to get her rights. We need to look at how women from different ethnic and religious minorities and indigenous women are treated those living in poverty or conflict zones. There's a recent UN report that came out just in advance of Saturday's International Women's Day, showing that we're not there yet. We have a long way to go to address to promote equality for women. There are many who are adversely affected by climate change, women and girls. So intersectionality demands that equality efforts address those overlapping forms of discrimination. But they have a duty to stand in solidarity.
Look at what happened to the Afghan women after the withdrawal and the Taliban took over recently. As you know, Afghan women cannot go out without their husbands or man with them. Well, a family, relative. And they can't speak when they're outside. Now imagine that God gave us all voices. They can't speak when they go out. Yesterday, I'm looking at the protests In India about an 8 year old girl who was raped. And not enough action is being taken to address this issue over and over. So around the world and even Trinidad and Tobago, domestic violence and intimate partner murders and violence against women here in Trinidad and Tobago is a real issue every day. You know that there are problems with partners, domestic violence, attacking women in their own homes, people who they say they love.
We also disproportionately represented among the world's poorest people.
We need to call for action for debt relief. This is a major issue. Only yesterday I was reading about the over 100 countries where about 650 to 60% of their GDP is used to pay back debt. To pay back debt. Look at Haiti, how many years they were paying back debt to France from colonial days. So when a country has. There's a fellow called Larry Elliott who wrote a beautiful article about this in the UK Guardian. When a country has to use so much of its GDP to pay back debt, what money is left for the people to empower the people to empower women, men and girls. And that's another issue. We have to work to make sure that we bring in women and men to in this partnership. It's not only women who should be fighting for equal rights, but the men. We need partnership with men. Yesterday I attended the Inter Club of Trinidad Tobago event at the Hyatt. Seventeen women's organizations came together and really about 500 powerful women advocating for equality. There were a few men as well. And that's why I said we cannot move forward on our own. We have to work with men as well. So women's and men's voices must be if we are to no more should we be fighting alone.
Sorry.
So we must wrap up efforts to address gender specific challenges including maternal health risks, disproportionate exposure to gender based violence, unequal domestic responsibilities. Now is the time for collective action at all levels of society and of every society. So we have to engage the media. Oh gosh. Every year as the consultant when I was chair of TCS as well Catholic Commission for Social Justice, I would issue a press release begging the media not to focus during Carnival on those women and men who are behaving terrible, who really might as well have been naked. And yet the media has a responsibility and they kept doing it. This carnival as well. We need corporate leaders, government, community leaders, civil society, youth, women and girls themselves. We have to listen to the needs of women and girls from the. We can't be developing policy and programs without their support. So in greater effect Change. We need to remember that achieving genuine equality requires countries to mainstream a gender perspective in policies, programs and operations. And our government should implement formal gender responsive budgeting processes that analyzes how expenditure affect women and men differently.
We need to conduct gender impact assessment before you finalize your budget. How is this budget going to affect women and girls and develop economic policies that address the structural inequalities in the labor market. Now I noticed some firms were advertising, you know, that they 50% women in senior positions. Wonderful. But let's not stop there. Let's not think that we only have a quota. Women and girls should be able to move forward and use their gifts at all levels. Our girls internationally, in technology and the digital world, they're not faring well at all because many countries are not seeing them as people who should be, you know, at the top of the should be addressing issues such as technology for women. So no. And we have to start educating our men and women from early o'clock. I'll give you an example. I was on a platform at UE and there was a. We're talking about equality for men and women and domestic violence. And this young fellow said, I don't see anything.
If you want to beat your wife, is your wife you could beat her. And the girl next to him said if you love the man, you go take the licks.
We have to socialize our men and women, our girls and boys, to understand that your innate dignity that God gave you means that you have to be treated with respect, that you are not a doormat. So early education and school curriculum reform is really critical. We have to develop educational materials that will showcase family structures and partnership models, give examples of what a good husband is, how he shows mutual respect, that we're not saying it's all on men to treat women respectfully. It's both sides, both men and women. So we need some self reflection as well.
Male peer influence. You, you know Jerome Tilak Singh, I think he's the one who started International Men's Day. Well, I know Jerome is concerned about this, that we have to create men's group and mentorship programs where men can support each other in developing more nurturing, emotionally expressive and equitable relationship styles and help people to model new behavior. Changing transforming our cultural norms and stereotypes of how a man and woman should behave in their relationship will take time. So we have to highlight couples who demonstrate healthy supportive partnerships to provide visible alternatives to dominant subordinate relationship models. And of course there's religion. We have an inter religious organization. We have so many religions in Trinidad and Tobago. And I feel faith communities can and must do more in their teaching to support equality, mutual care and respect rather than hierarchical marriage structures. So, of course, community programs will also help. And the kind of material we have, supportive films and books. Oh, gosh. There's some sites where in all these videos, for instance, some of these. I shouldn't name the country where it's always the men cheating and beating up the wife. Those kinds. We have to counter that. We can. We can't force people to change their culture just. Just like that, but we can produce alternatives to counter that.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Yes. And then cross cultural learning and workplace. Don't talk about the workplace. How many of our firms in Trinidad and Tobago have, you know, child care facilities, you know, creches, et cetera. How many of them allow the fathers also to have paternity leave to help with the child care arrangement? And, of course, legal framework. I noticed our incoming prime minister, Minister Young, said that he's going to address domestic violence and bring stricter laws in place to address equality, inequality issues. The thing is, while we need to reform laws and legal structures, that's not all that's necessary. Enforcement is an issue. For four years, I sat on the Police Service Commission, and when I tell you, I will go to my grave with grief about some of the problems we have with the rogue police in our police service who will not address some of these issues with. With any level of seriousness. So we need to change the way in which our police operate. We need more community policing. And then, of course, there's the issue about health care and how healthcare or health service address people like the migrants. I remember I was chair of the Archdiocese Ministry for Migrants and Refugees. And when some of these Venezuelan women, pregnant women, would go to some of the clinics, we had to have eventually people, Trinis, accompanying them because they were not treated fairly. Oh, gosh, we're human beings. We're all supposed to be. The government said that, you know, certain health care would be available to all women. So I'm looking, if you notice, I'm looking at all the different areas where we need action to promote equality for women and girls. And we need male leadership to encourage men in position of influence to speak out about healthy masculinity and supportive partnership and to make these values more socially acceptable for other men and fatherhood, too. You know, we have that gentleman who works with fathers. We need programs that specifically support men in becoming engaged, nurturing fathers who take responsibility for childcare and domestic labor. And in our. Don't talk about the workplace. How many women have been striving to break the glass ceiling? While some. While we pay tribute to those women who have broken the glass ceiling, we have a long way to go to enable all use their skills and their gifts effectively. Intergenerational dialogue. We need to facilitate conversation between older and younger men and women about changing the expectations and possibilities for men's roles in relationship. And we have to address the fears, the real fears about changing roles, including fears about the loss of identity some men feel, you know, when you're taking away my manhood, that is a real issue in Trinidad and Tobago too.
Are we emasculating our men? We know that that is an issue that UE and others have been discussing as well. Knowing how to behave in new paradigms, how do we help our men to, you know, maneuver and move away from the dominant women male way in which they've been behaving to accept that all women deserve respect as well and their benefits. We need to highlight the benefits of doing so. So reframing the power over. Power over as opposed to power with let's walk. Men and women, boys and girls, alongside each other, collaborating with each other. It will benefit everyone as we strive to build a better Trinidad and Tobago and then measure progress. We're terrible at research, collecting research and data to find out how we're doing and then celebrate milestones. As we make changes and we see change occurring, let's actually reinforce new norms and encourage continued growth. And what about the transformation to support others, women and girls? That requires patience, persistence and engagement. And so while this shift has benefit, stronger families will come out of it, improved mental health, you know, many women suffer. We don't have enough shelters for women. I know that this is one issue that the new prime minister will have on his agenda. Shelters for battered women. We don't have enough. And because we are small islands, who, who cares about what happens in these shelters to these women? So we need, you know, we need to. And for those religious people who will go to the Bible and say in the. In Ephesians, for instance in 5, chapter 5, verse 21 to 2025, you read that wives subject to your husband as it's fitting to the Lord. Our Pope has made it clear that that is not a call for women to be second class citizens or to be subjugated. It's a call to mutual respect and love within marriage rather than a mandate or within relationship rather than a mandate for female subordination. So he has written a wonderful exhortation called Amoris Leticia, the joy of love.
We need to ensure that those who are religious, those Christians, for instance, will not use passages like that to say, God, say, submit to your husband. No, it's a misinterpretation of the scriptures. So I would like everyone during this time because although International Women's Day was on Saturday, we have a lot more work to do for the rest. Not only one day, it shouldn't be celebrated one day. We have to celebrate International Women's Day every day. When I looked around that room at the Hyatt yesterday and looked at the quality of the women who were there from 15 different.
It was an afternoon tea. And there's 17 different organization from the different. The National Muslim Women in a real club. It was the Inter Club of Trinidad and Tobago. Yeah. Seroptimist, Syrian, Lebanese women, women of substance, single women, Associate Canadian, Brahma Kumari, the different women's groups. These women are working.
I shouldn't say bad song, but they're working hard daily to create a better society. So let's look at empowerment. Remember that empowerment of girls and women will benefit everybody. We're not doing this for ourselves, but there's an international charity called Oxfam. They sadly confirmed that every day in every country in the world, women are confronted by discrimination and inequality. They face violence, abuse and unequal treatment at home, at work and in the wider communities. And they denied opportunities to learn, to earn and to lead. In Afghanistan, women can't. Girls can't go to school. They have a right. It's a human right. Human rights are universal and they cannot be defended only individually, but as a whole. And remember, solidarity means seeing the other person as your own self. So what you would want for yourself as a woman, as a girl, as a man or a boy, we should want for others. You know, child brides on a killing, female genital mutilation. Those are real issues affecting women. And whether we have it in Trinidad here or not, child brides, we know that there was legislation to address that in Trinidad and Tobago on a killing. I mean, I live 33 years in England on a killing there. For people from different faith communities who've come to England on a killing is a real issue and it happens all the time. So we need to strive to break cycles of disadvantage and discrimination and continue to help dismantle intergenerational cycles of poverty and inequality. When. When you look at the women in the trenches in Trinidad and Tobago who are suffering with their girls in Sea Lots and Mova and Maloney and places like that, oh, Gosh, no matter how small our cake is, our budget is the rising tide, as they say, should lift everyone. And it's not happening in Trinidad and Tobago. We have an election coming up and I say to all those who want to put themselves forward to, to be leaders, to be members of parliament and ministers, remember, the inherent dignity belong not only to you, but to every woman and girl, every man and boy in Trinidad and Tobago. And you know as Malana, that young girl who was shot, the Pakistani girl, Malana said, we need to raise up. She raised her voices not because she wants to shout, but so that those who have no voice can be heard. And that's what we need to do. So equality.
I want to mention one issue. We need to understand the difference between equality and equity. We say we have equal opportunity for everybody to go to school. In Trinidad and Tobago. Equality means treating everyone the same by providing equal access to resources or opportunities, like the wooden school. But equity means addressing individual needs and providing different levels of support to ensure everyone can achieve the same outcome. Recognizing that people may not start from the same place. Essentially, equality is giving everyone the same thing, while equity is giving everyone what they need to be successful. If you have look at rural areas so they have equal access to education. But when you're living in abject poverty in a squat or a little hovel somewhere and you don't have money to pay the transport for your child to go to school, that is what we call equity. You need to look at the difference between the two and address it in our policies, in our legislation, etc. So you see, really? Malala said, I'll read a lot. Malala Yousafzal, she's the activist and she won a Nobel Prize as well because Pakistan had banned education for girls. She said, I raised my voice not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. And today we see the plight of women across the world continues to be, you know, leaving them behind. Okay, but there's nothing we can do. So we need to encourage our government to implement formal gender responsive budgeting. We need to fund universal access of quality education for girls and women and to make sure they can access it. Organize community workshops on gender issues and host public forum.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: This is where we're gonna have to drop the curtains. You've given us a lot to consider, but this is where we drop the curtains on our interview. Thank you so much for being with us here this morning.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback. Accountability. The all new talk rad freedom 106.5.
