BARBADIANS HAVE BEEN given a clearer picture of the status of gender equality in the country: the achievements and the challenges.
The Caribbean Development Bank has just handed over a 116-page gender assessment report on the country which involved research, consultation and interviews with 109 stakeholders in 59 organisations.
The report said that while Barbados was rated as a country with a very high human development, it still had some way to go to improve the status of females.
According to the report, the achievements of girls with regard to secondary education were offset by low female representation in Parliament, relatively low labour force participation and high rates of maternal mortality and adolescent fertility.
“Overall human development has not been accompanied by a concomitant reduction in gender inequality,” it added.
Addressing a workshop at the CDB’s headquarters today focusing on the report, Minister of Social Care Steve Blackett said the assessment had come at an opportune time, when his ministry was in the process of developing an institutional framework which would initiate and coordinate its efforts to “strengthen relations between the sexes”.
“The findings of this assessment will strengthen our understanding of where we are and what needs to be done,” he remarked. (TY)
