…Chandarpal says society should do away with the title house wife

By Elvin Carl Croker
CHAIRPERSON of the Women and Gender Equality Commission (WGEC) Indranie Chandarpal has called on all Guyanese to help dispel some traditions and innuendos that have labeled men and women over the years.

At a symposium on Friday organised by the Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO) in Observance of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women Chandarpal said women should not blindly follow customs and traditions without trying to understand them.

“We should move away from some customs and traditions such as referring to a woman as “house wife” since she is not married to the house but to a person, she should instead be referred to as the CEO of the house”. She told the well-attended gathering of mostly women.

In the same vein she said that society must stop expecting their sons to be supermen, ‘being everything for everyone’ and if he cries he is seen as being weak, or a ‘sissy’. She said that society should move away from the belief that ‘men don’t cry’ and that they should not sweep the house or do other domestic chores and that men should be the bread winners, and that girls should not climb trees because they will make the fruit sour, this she said would be very harmful to them.

Today the world will observe International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women under the theme “Orange the World: Generation Equality Stands Against Rape”.
Gender-based violence is everybody’s business Chandarpal noted and urged all mothers and women not to perpetuate discrimination of their daughters because of the belief that women need a man to protect her and that if she is not married and have a child, she is not a proper woman. “We are pleased that the government is engaged in educating and bringing this issue to the fore”. The WGEC chairperson said.

In 1993 the UN General Assembly defined violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”

Meanwhile General-Secretary of the WPO Sheila Veerasammy in her opening remarks called for an end to the scourge of violence against women noting that it impedes the lives of most people especially women and girls. She said that all Guyanese should work together to achieve this objective which she said cannot be achieved by a single organisation or community, but must be tackled collectively by everyone throughout Guyana.

“Violence against women and girls is the most universal and pervasive human rights violation affecting about one-billion-woman worldwide and much more needs to be done to comprehensively address the structural barriers, gender discriminatory and cultural practices that deny women their socio economic rights and undermine their resilience to move ahead,” she said.

Veerasammy said she recommends a revision of the policies and legislation that address the problems so that it can be able to influence social norms and practices that stymied women’s growth and development.

“While Guyana has been able to create an enabling environment to facilitate women’s socio economic and political opportunity, much more needs to be done,” she posited. She noted that in the Guyanese society they are too many single parent mothers, who are left with the responsibility of providing, nurturing and instilling values in their children.

According to a survey done by the United Nations, a large percentage of women are affected by some kind of violence around the world. In North America 32 per, Latin America and the Caribbean 38 percent, Europe 46 percent Asia 64 percent and Africa 64 percent.

Apart from the 35 percent of women in the world who are affected by violence, they are 87,000 women who are intentionally killed globally by their partners. Also women account for nearly half or 49 percent of all human trafficking victims that are detected globally.