Gadsby-Dolly: PM right to warn women

THE Prime Minister was right to publicly warn women to be careful in their choice of men (from whom the authorities may not be able to protect them) said Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, on Wednesday.

The House of Representatives unanimously passed the Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2020 which was previously passed in the Senate. Gadsby-Dolly praised the bill for giving more protection to victims.

She then defended Dr Rowley’s controversial admonition, proffered in 2017 at a public meeting at Maloney dubbed Conversations, in relation to several domestic killings.

“I want to thank God for a Prime Minister (Rowley) who has the fortitude to say to women, be careful who you engage yourself with, be careful who you take into your confidence, into your bedroom, because that is the crux of the matter. As women we must be discerning. We must look for the signs.”

Parents must tell their children to be careful of potential abusers, she said.

“As the mother of two teenage daughters it is something I say to my teenage daughters every single day. Be careful. Look at how someone treats you. Look at the signs. There are always signs that show us what is possible, both for men and for women.

“So this issue is very important and I am grateful for a Prime Minister who recognises that.”

She hailed Rowley for heading a Government that banned child marriage.

“I’m grateful for a Prime Minister who ensured we have a child marriage bill in TT that protects our young girls from predators that would prey on them were this not so.”

Gadsby-Dolly said TT’s first female prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had not taken that step.

The minister said TT would soon open its first State-run shelter for women and children followed by two more and, later on, one for men and their children, to help curb gender-violence.

Gadsby-Dolly hoped to kindle a debate on men-women, boy-girl relationships.

“In TT alone it is clear we have our girls outperforming our boys. It has and it is going to contribute further to the inability of both genders to deal with each other in terms of relationship.”

She said TT’s societal norm of man as provider and woman as subservient has been changing significantly, but may not have got enough attention.

“I don’t know that we are paying enough attention in terms of our homes and our parenting and our churches and so on, in how we deal with that dynamic, because it is causing a lot of friction. It is causing men a lot of problems in how they deal with women, and also women in how they deal with men.”

Gadsby-Dolly wanted to start a public discussion on gender, including differences in how boys and girls are parented.

“I listen to when my girls tell me that I parent my boy differently, and that it feeds into a societal norm that allows them to get away with more.”

She asked how does society address a gender situation that can lead to violence.

“Once friction is allowed to take place then what can happen is that we lead to this level of violence because men do not feel as though they have the dominance they are accustomed to having and women feel they are independent and therefore you know sometimes it throws respect out the door.

“We have to look at this situation very seriously. We have to admit there is a dynamic that has changed.”

While Parliament dealt with legislation, she urged NGOs and religious bodies to try to address the source of domestic violence namely stresses in the gender dynamic, as has been done by several initiatives at the Gender Division. She said the hard work of gender minister Ayanna Webster-Roy and the placement of the gender unit within the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM.)