— Teixeira
ADVISOR to the President, Ms. Gail Teixeira, speaking yesterday on behalf of the government in commemoration of International Human Rights Day, said that this is an important day for the people of Guyana to mark.
She alluded to statements by Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr.  Ban-Ki-Moon and Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which, she said, are important statements in relation to the stages of human rights in the world, in particular to issues of ending discrimination and relating to protecting human rights defenders.
Ms Teixeira affirmed that Guyana supports the statements made and said this country recognises and is greatly concerned about the increase in racial and religious discrimination and a phobia that is becoming evident on the world scene.
She stressed that, as a participant in the Universal Periodic Review in May and September of this year, Guyana has witnessed the type of comments and criticisms made on various countries – developed and developing countries – in relation to practices, which have now become known as Islamophobia, as well as discrimination against immigrants in various parts of the world, particularly against persons who are considered black, and persons who are not white.
She also expressed concerns on issues in relation to the global recession, where the rights to education and good health, are becoming incrementally limited for an increasing number of persons, particularly the poor and vulnerable populations of the world.
However, she said that Guyana has to do its own reckoning and scrutinise its performance.
According to her, it certainly needs to be said that Guyana does not suffer from some of the violations of human rights that are occurring and escalating in many parts of the world at alarming rates.
Ms Teixeira referred to the many reforms introduced by Guyana over the last 18 years in terms of consolidating a democratic architecture and framework for the country.
Speaking in her personal capacity as a perennial and unapologetic human rights defender, as both a member of the People’s Progressive Party and the Government of Guyana, Ms. Teixeira stressed that both bodies are based on the philosophy of building democracy, with one period of struggle to restore democracy in earlier years, then subsequently institutionalising the various spheres of freedoms to consolidate democratic blueprints in the country.
She alluded to the many challenges faced by Guyana and other developing countries and proffered an example in relation to the statements made by President Bharrat Jagdeo at the Cancun meeting relative to the withholding of funds designated to Guyana through the Low Carbon Development strategy and the Norwegian agreement.  She reiterated that these funds belong to Guyana as they are not part of a loan agreement.
Ms Teixeira juxtaposed human rights in the context of the ability of developing countries to access funding to enable affordability in its developmental initiatives, as against the needs of the people.
She stressed that Guyana nevertheless has gone far ahead in achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals in the educational and other primary sectors, despite constraints of financial and technical resources, and asserted that, alongside a multiplicity of achievements, Guyana has also made tremendous strides in democratic and shared governance through its parliamentary composition and parliamentary sectoral committees, which she opined are major achievements for a country like ours, which evolved from a destitute state and a collapsed economy in 1992 to its current status.
She concurred that Guyana faces many extant and emerging challenges, but nonetheless lauded the tremendous developmental strides that have been made in the country and applauded all those who have contributed to the many achievements that have ensued in such progress and in building a democratic society in Guyana.
Referring to the continuum of struggle to reduce poverty and ensure equity and equitable delivery of services to all the people in the land, she noted that one of the primary achievements of Guyana is the fact that Amerindians are the only indigenous people in this hemisphere who have titled lands – 97 titles for 134 communities, which represent 14% of the land mass of Guyana, with the demarcation and land titling an ongoing programme, the expansion of which is integral to Guyana’s LCDS and the Norwegian agreement.
Listing among Guyana’s human rights achievements the hard-fought-for right to free and fair elections, which the PPP Government has entrenched, she quoted electoral practices in many other parts of the world where this right has been violated and hijacked from the people by undemocratic forces.
She also named the right to low cost housing as another major gain in the government’s human rights policies, which she stressed, is not available in most parts of the world – including developed nations.
Ms Teixeira noted that services to the people of the country by the government are not rendered in any discriminatory manner and stressed that human rights defenders in Guyana have full freedoms to pursue their various agendas.
Referring to the many years of struggle for freedom on various fronts by the party in Government, she noted that this factors into the administrative consciousness an extreme sensitivity and social consciousness relative to human rights, which is a combination that makes Guyana special.
Referring to Mr. Ban-Ki-Moon’s allusion on women’s empowerment, Ms Teixeira said that Guyana has made tremendous strides in this respect, especially at the political and parliamentary levels, where it is ranked among the top 25 countries in the world.
Guyanese women have also achieved and have been empowered to achieve in every area of endeavour, according to Ms Teixeira.
She, however, lamented that Guyana’s culture of male supremacy and violence toward women is still a major challenge, although there is a concerted momentum by the government working in collaboration with various bodies to eliminate this scourge in society, which is not peculiar to Guyana, but is a universal phenomenon, demanding a universal solution.
She also stressed that Guyana’s constitutional protections for vulnerable groups have been strengthened.
Ms Teixeira said that, although various bodies are promoting human rights in society, it finally boils down to individual choices to treat everyone with equity and dignity, especially in family structures.
However, she noted that there is need for vigilance to ensure that there is no reversal in the gains achieved thus, but instead that the successes achieved in protecting the human rights in society gain greater momentum and are increased.
Reminiscing on the yesteryears of struggle for freedom from colonialism and the restoration of democracy by the phenomenal propagators of human rights, Dr. Cheddi and Mrs Janet Jagan, Ms Teixeira said that women have played a very important role in the political struggle and were given equal opportunities to education and upward mobility by the leadership of the party, to the extent where they created many firsts in the socio-political landscape of the country, at levels once thought impossible to achieve.
Among one of the notable firsts in the PPP’s history of struggle was Mrs. Jagan being the first woman in the world to become Deputy Speaker of a Parliament in 1953.  According to Ms Teixeira, to have women in the Senate in the 1950s was a groundbreaking phenomenon in the world.
Ms Teixeira said that the PPP has, from the inception, cultivated a culture of women’s participation at leadership levels and a lack of intolerance, with great tolerance and encouragement for women to aspire and achieve to optimal levels.
She also extolled the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform for the role the party has played in elevating its female members to leadership positions.