CARIBBEAN TODAY


- usw^caribeantoda..o I


I rocus


on


 ~ A Caribbean Today special feature


 Women's group wants T&T HEAD OF


public national gender policy


PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad,
CMC The Network of NGO
of Trinidad and Tobago for
the Advancement of Women
has called on the Patrick
Manning government to make
public the latest version of a
National Draft Gender Policy
for the country.
 The NGO said that the
draft policy was supposed to
have been laid in Parliament a
month ago as a Green Paper,
and that "although it was listed
on the Parliament website in
the Supplemental Order Paper
of Friday July 17th, it was in
fact not laid then or since.
 "To add insult to injury
the Parliament has gone in to
recess until September. We
cannot understand why, four
years after the arbitrary with-
drawal by the prime minister
of the last draft, the govern-
ment is playing hide and seek
with their sanitised version,"
said group coordinator Hazel
Brown last month.
 "This gender policy has
been in the making for over 20
years and millions of taxpayers
dollars and people's time and
energy has been invested in it. It
cannot therefore be hidden
from the public view any more."

SECRET?
 She said that the 2005 ver-
sion, which was withdrawn,


was produced following
extensive consultations with
different communities and
organizations all over Trinidad
and Tobago. The consultations
dealt with a wide range of
issues and made recommenda-
tions regarding family, educa-
tion, health, labor, employ-
ment, violence, and economics
among other areas.
 "No one knows what
was removed or added in the
secret non transparent
process since the withdrawal.
Now that we are told that
Cabinet has approved their
version. We want to see it.
Why are they hiding it?" she
asked.
 She said that the NGO
was therefore advocating that
the ministry publish in the
newspapers a user friendly
version of their revised draft
policy and work plan for pub-
lic comment, which should be
reviewed by a small working
group with a mandate to have
a document ready for adop-
tion by Nov. 2009.
 "The process of develop-
ing a national gender policy
has been going on for more
than 20 years. We cannot
afford to delay any longer,"
Brown said.
0


 Photograph by Dennis Gordon
 Yvonne Gittens-Joseph, Trinidad and Tobago's high commissioner to Jamaica, presents an award to Yanique Amoy Henry, left, a
 student at Hampton School in Jamaica, for winning the inaugural Eric Williams CAPE Prize in History recently. Henry also received,
 on behalf of The Eric Williams Memorial Collection at The University of the West Indies (T&T), a laptop computer and book prize.


T&T becomes latest Caribbean country to join IOM


PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad,
CMC- Trinidad and Tobago has
joined four other Caribbean
community (CARICOM) coun-
tries in becoming full members of
the Geneva-based International
Organization for Migration
(IOM).
 A statement issued
recently by T&T's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs noted that the
country was admitted as a full
member late last month and
joins The Bahamas, Belize,
Haiti and Jamaica.


 The Dominican Republic
also has full membership sta-
tus, while Cuba and Guyana
enjoy observer status.
 The statement said that as
a result of being a full mem-
ber, T&T can now seek to
benefit from additional train-
ing and programs in areas
such as best practices in
migration management; assis-
tance with voluntary returns
of displaced and trafficked
persons; assistance with count-
er-trafficking in humans and


migration data collection and
related research activities to
ensure greater appreciation
for migration trends in the
region.
 The Ministry of Foreign
Affairs said that the country
has already benefitted from a
number of IOM programs and
has participated in several
IOM activities as a non-mem-
ber state since April 2005.
0


T&T's ethnic issues surface during health care debate


(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13)
administration of "pursuing a
practice of selective discrimi-
nation particularly as it relates
to employment in the public
service.
 Gopeesingh said there
were more than 150 senior
doctors in Trinidad and Tobago
of East Indian descent and that
"they have been forced out of
the ,wr\u L .
 Incensed by the state-
ment, Prime Minister
Manning immediately called
for its retraction adding that
such comments were the kind
to be expected from "gutter
MIipL and not from a parlia-
mentarian.
 "I don't want you to bring
it. I'm not interested in it. You
see, Mr Speaker, it would have
been enough if the member
had come and said 'on the
basis of this evidence I make
this I jILt_ inlI', I would have
objected also, I would have
objected also, Mr. Speaker,
because evidence or no evi-
dence, that kind of talk in a
Parliament like this does us no
good," Manning said.
 The prime minister said
while he had respect for


Gopeesingh as a doctor and a
senior parliamentarian, he was
"very much taken aback when
on the basis on what the
Honourable Member said he
was told, he sought to come to
the Parliament to raise an
issue of race and to raise it in
such a manner that could be
the source of tremendous dis-
cord.
 "It is not the kind of talk
that I would ascribe to a
Member of Parliament. It
sounded like the kind of talk
that you will expect from a
gutter snipe...that is how it
sounded to me. Most inappro-
priate," Manning added.
 The Leader of
Government Business in
Parliament Colm Imbert, for
his part, described the state-
ments as irresponsible in the
extreme and accused the
Opposition legislator of utter-
ing the "racist statements that
could provoke racial hatred.
 "Mr. Speaker, without a
shred of evidence...irresponsi-
ble in the extreme," Imbert
said, noting that the vast
majority of medical practition-
ers in the public service were
of East Indian descent.
 "It is a fact that the


majority of doctors in this
country are of East Indian
descent. I can say without any
fear of contradiction that the
majority of doctors in every
hospital in the public health
service, with the possible
exception of Tobago, are of
East Indian descent."

NOT FAZED
 But the criticisms did not
deter Gopeesingh, who told a
news conference afterwards
that he "felt compelled" to
bring the matter into the
Parliament raiL r than hiding
it because I would have been
doing an injustice to the socie-


ty, particularly when people's
lives are at risk.
 "We cannot sweep it
under the carpet because to
sweep it under the carpet
would be doing a massive dis-
service to the national com-
munity and it must be brought
out and Parliament is the
place that it has to be dis-
cussed.
 "We cannot discuss this
outside. We are elected by the
people and the people expect
us to discuss this," he said,
producing a list of names of
senior doctors of Indian
descent who had been forced
out of the system.
 The Opposition legislator
said his information about the
"ethnic cleansing" at the hos-
pital had been provided to
him by former junior Health
Minister Fuad Khan, who in a
radio interview went even fur-
ther indicating that the East
Indian doctors were being
replaced by doctors from
Africa. Khan, who said he had
been by-passed for a consul-
tancy position at the hospital
in favor of a doctor with less
qualification and experience
from Africa, said he would not
have mind had the job gone to


a Afro Trinidadian.
 But the Trinidad and
Tobago Medical Association
(TTMA) said it was distancing
itself from Gopeesingh's alle-
gation, adding that it felt
embarrassed by the whole
affair.
 "He has brought the whole
profession into disrepute,
because he made it sound as
though Indian doctors treat
African patients differently
and this is not true," said Dr.
Frank Ramlackhansingh,
TfMA's public relations
officer.
 "As professionals, we
treat all of our patients the
same, there is no racial bias.
We look after all patients in
the same way regardless of
their race or their background.
It doesn't matter if they are
from Laventille or any other
part of the country, we look at
the whole person," said the
TTMA official, adding that
some of the names on
Gopeesingh's list are people
who left the service voluntari-
ly or had reached retirement
age.

0


August 2009