How to empower Caribbean women for political leadership

ON International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023, earlier this month, themes chosen regionally and internationally reflected current related trends, most based on levels of global support of, or urgency for, empowering women and reducing the gender inequality gap. How best to empower women is a question with as many answers as cases of related disempowerment, but since IWD started in 1975, the movement has grown considerably in the Caribbean, from fighting for attention to domestic violence and sexual abuse to Caribbean women today having largely earned successes from long fights for rights -- individually and collectively -- than thought 48 years ago.

Guyana was the first CARICOM nation to legislate proportional representation of women in the National Assembly, and the number of women being elected to top offices regionally can be seen in current CARICOM Secretary General, Dr Carla Barnett, as well as continuing appointments of women as Presidents and Governors-General, Chief Justices, Police Commissioners and other top-bracket public service jobs earlier treated like domains for “only men.”

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Saint Lucia Government, on March 3, commemorated IWD 2023 by highlighting gender disparity in political participation and leadership on the island, through a one-