Community
Articles and/or Speeches

A Family Court
Introduction of Ms Delancy
Mother's Day Speech
The Role Of NGOs
Seventh Day Church
Turks and Caicos Employment Bill
Woman's Day

International Woman's Day
March 8, 2005
speech by Hon. Karen Delancy

World historians have long observed that the degree of human rights observed in any society is directly proportional to the rights and freedoms that women enjoy in that society.

It is a well-known fact that in a slave society the masters treat their women with scant respect and that male dominated societies are more prone to be oppressive. Many eastern cultures view the role of women in society as a balancing force that maintains the smooth functioning of the community.

At the Beijing conference ten years ago the world made a valiant attempt to discuss and implement ideas that were to render discrimination against women and minorities a phenomenon of the past; as the world looked forward then to the dawn of the twenty-first century We are five years into that century and the presence of women in government and parliament stands at fifteen percent and lower.

In the developing countries women still struggle for the right to be paid equal wages for equal work. Sexual harassment at the work place in many societies is still seen as being the fault of the woman or deemed to be the result of women with overactive imaginations.

A woman who seeks to assert her position as a human being is still branded as hysterical, incompetent or of late, not having the head for science or mathematics.

The Turks and Caicos may not be a ‘’developing nation’’ since we are still to attain the status of nationhood but our mentality is certainly that of a developing nation.

Of the eighteen persons in our legislative council only two women are elected and of the two elected only one holds a ministerial portfolio. We have never had a female governor and the Governors that have been posted here so far seem to lend support to the demoralizing trend of disregarding and denigrating our women.

Ours is a society where a female member of the executive council is removed by the Governor on the advice of the Chief Minister for being sick while other members were absent without a valid reason and have remained untouched.

The proposed amendments to the constitution focuses on the transfer of political power to the local population but no where is it mentioned that women will be guaranteed political power and economic empowerment.

As a British Overseas Territory one would have expected that we be urged to place a quota on the number of seats in the Legislative Council that were to be occupied by women -after all the symbolic head of state is a woman Her Majesty the Queen.

With constitutional guarantees of a share in the political power of our country women will be in a position to reap the economic benefits that we observe being mis-appropriated by the men in their positions as political leaders.

I know that it is difficult for women to think outside the box that has been constructed by men but whether we like it or not we must assert ourselves and take control of our own destiny and those of our children, our men and our country.

The most powerful man that you will ever meet was once a babe in the arms of a woman and behind every successful male there is a wise female. Women should not dominate but demand their rightful place in our society.