Red Thread says women don’t know their rights
MINISTER of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, has said it is about time that Parliament takes stock of the several pieces of legislation that have been passed, to determine their efficacy and status of implementation.Trotman, a former Speaker of the House, has called for an annual “legislatorial pause”, saying this is needed in order to ensure that pieces of legislation that have been passed are properly implemented, and that the public is educated on those laws.
Trotman made these comments while speaking at the opening session of the Parliamentary Gender Seminar hosted at Parliament Chambers last Wednesday by the Women and Gender Equality Commission, in collaboration with the University of Guyana’s (UG) Institute of Gender Studies.
Trotman said he has been asking himself questions regarding the implementation of laws passed in Parliament, and he pitched the idea to the group as a recommendation for the National Assembly.
“(A) question that I have, and I have been asking myself, is whether at some point in time a legislative house or Parliament should not pause and just gather all the acts of Parliament that it had passed, and go through them and try to do some form of education and (implementation) review.”
He said that, rather than just rejoicing over the passage of laws, Parliamentarians could stop to think about “the weight that we keep adding to different institutions”, and set aside a period to help implement those laws.
Referring to a saying about there being “a time for everything”, Trotman said: “Maybe there is a time for passing, and there should be a time to pause and ensure education and implementation and explanation.”
He said that while there have been so many laws passed, some 90% of the population, including lawyers and members of the judiciary, may not even be aware that some of those laws exist.
Trotman said he believes it a good idea for parliamentarians to come out of parliament once a year, for a period of two to three months, and focus on explaining the laws that they have passed during the previous year, or over a particular period. They should also use the opportunity to find out how those laws were being interpreted and received by the wider Guyanese society, Trotman suggested.
A representative of Red Thread pointed out that because of little or no access to adequate information and services, grassroots women do not benefit from many rights and legal considerations available to them.
“We are not aware of many of those laws; we don’t know our rights; we don’t know what those laws entail; and we don’t know how to access them… And in cases where we read these laws, the language is difficult. How do we make the laws accessible to grassroots people? We have a right to know what’s going on…in terms of the language (that is understandable) to grassroots women,” the woman told the forum.
She said that, without proper implementation, it makes no sense that laws are passed; they are being passed just for the sake of the record.
“What good are the laws when we just have laws for the sake of laws? When laws are not implemented? We need to look at how we implement the laws that have been passed, rather than making new laws and they’re just there for the sake of new laws,” she reasoned.
Facilitator of the forum, Attorney Sadie Amin, said the Guyana Women Lawyers Association (GWLA) is the publisher of pamphlets which present the law in plain, simple language. She said the GWLA has a special booklet which focuses on laws and rights of women.
Co-Presenter, attorney-at-law Ayana McCalman, said the use of technology was important in sharing laws to the public, and since not every person who received it would have an opportunity to read it, posters should be designed and shared.
She said the pause that Minister Trotman spoke about was not just for personal gains. “It’s not just a personal soul principle…it’s a national principle. As a country, we need to do that. And that is what will move us into being a distinguished house, a house for the people,” she said.
She also suggested that information out of Parliament should be summarized and shared on social media by the Parliament’s Public Relations Office (PRO).
Hosted by WGEC (Women and Gender Equality Commission) Commissioner Vanda Radzik, with panellists being Justice Roxane George; President of the Guyana Women Lawyers Association (GWLA), Sadie Amin; and attorney-at-law Ayana McCalman, the seminar continues on Friday with a discussion on ‘Gender and Development and SDG Goal 5.’
