On the evening of Wednesday, March 15th, at the House of Assembly, Ms. Kemoloy Murphy and Mrs. Ronya Foy-Connor were the facilitators of a forum for assimilating views from the public that would feed into the creation of a policy that would guide decisions on matters pertinent to Gender Affairs.
Similar meetings had been held recently in various parts of the island as information was gathered from the public in order to help to craft the Gender Affairs policy.
At the opening of Wednesday’s meeting, Ms. Murphy welcomed the modest audience: “In our meeting this evening we would invite you to contribute to ideas that would help to shape practical and impactful solutions in the realm of gender equality. Gender equality is not a stand-alone issue,” she said. “It touches every aspect of national development, from education and health to economic opportunities, safety and community wellbeing.”
Ms. Connor stated: “We do have a draft policy on Gender Affairs, for the most part, but it requires fine-tuning, after which it will be presented to Executive Council for perusal.”
She presented the Vision of the policy as follows: “To be actively committed to fostering equal and humane treatment in the daily lives of every man, woman, girl and boy whereby we manifest a united Anguilla.” According to Ms. Connor, this vision was developed in 2015.
During the forum, the audience engaged in a wide range of interesting discussion and shared in constructive dialog on matters such as: The Woman as a Single Parent; Why Men Leave the Home; The Higher Rate at Which Girls Advance and Develop Compared to Boys; Women’s Outlook in a Feminist Age; Training of Male and Female Employees in the Workplace, Traits of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, Non-Discriminate Attitudes Toward LGBTQ Cultures, and others.
The facilitators presented the four main pillars that provide a framework for the policy. These policy pillars include Socio-Cultural, Political; Economic; and Environmental factors. The fundamentals of the “pillars” were thoroughly explained and questions and discussions surrounded their explanations.
According to Mrs. Foy-Connor, once the outcome from the evening’s discussions is added to the draft, it will be presented to Executive Council as early as next week.
