COVID-19 planning needs ‘gender focus’
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation, Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation, Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth

– says Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation’s CEO

By Vishani Ragobeer

AS the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have severe adverse effects on people and countries, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Caribbean Family Planning Affiliation, Reverend Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth, has emphasised that gender considerations should form a key part of Guyana’s planning efforts.

In a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Sheerattan-Bisnauth lamented that vulnerable groups, such as women and children, are disproportionately affected, and more so in times of disaster.

“I haven’t heard any kind of gender consideration,” the Reverend lamented, explaining that there are a number of considerations which should be made for sectors which women traditionally occupy. These sectors include education, nursing, and domestic work.

For nurses and teachers, who are frontline workers, Sheerattan-Bisnauth shared her concern about whether they have children and other family members at home to be taken care of. With the return of teachers to the classroom, however, the Ministry of Education noted that teachers’ children can be accommodated in schools with them.

For domestic workers, on the other hand, the situation is much worse.

“I’ve been hearing and hearing more directly from a lot of domestic workers who’ve lost their jobs and a lot of them have lost their jobs and many of them are the sole breadwinners of their families,” Sheerattan-Bisnauth said.

The Guyana Chronicle spoke to one domestic worker, Samanthani (not her real name), who said that since March, it has been very difficult for her to work. She usually assists with cleaning homes and washing clothes for persons who hire her. But now, many persons either complain of not having enough disposable money or they express their fears of being infected with COVID-19. She, however, expressed that the $25,000 cash relief grant did provide some relief to her, even if it was for a short while.

Samanthani’s experience is only one in a pool of numerous domestic workers who have been adversely affected. And Sheerattan-Bisnauth related that there are numerous “sad stories” of women who “can’t put food on the table” because they don’t have any source of income.

“I didn’t hear any kind of emergency measures specific to them and I think when we have a dire situation like this, you need a group of people who come with the interests of what will be most essential,” she said.

One of these “essential” interests, she explained, is for those women who are already poor, living on subsistence, and have lost their livelihoods due to the pandemic.

“I hope that the data at (the Ministries of Health and Human Services) and elsewhere is disaggregated because we need to capture these to be able to have a proper strategy,” the Reverend said.

These ministries, she posited, should have planning committees that have adequate representation of persons who can make the gender considerations necessary to ensure that the disproportionate effects on women and other vulnerable groups could be mitigated.

“But so far, I haven’t really seen in the public sphere so much of this to tell me that Guyana has gender very significantly in its planning.”

Another issue of grave concern has been the surge in domestic violence reported locally. This is yet another instance of how careful “gender planning” could help to alleviate some of the woes in society, according to Sheerattan-Bisnauth.

Her personal observation of the limited consideration given to vulnerable groups when planning for the pandemic is one that is of concern to her. But when asked if she believes that economic recovery is being prioritised over ensuring citizens’ security, she reasoned that economic recovery is also important.

“I think there has to be an approach where economic recovery is also important because people need to be feeding their children and earning a livelihood… but we also need that concerted effort with the gender considerations to ensure the economic recovery that we’re going for does not kind of compromise the essentials for our people,” Sheerattan-Bisnauth posited.

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