Gender issues need debate

It is true that there is a correlation between women’s status and development and, by extension, low crime rates. It is countries like Sweden, Canada and the United Kingdom, which have long enshrined equal rights for women, which have the lowest crime rates in the world. The sole exception in the group is Japan, which is still a male-dominated culture, yet that country was also one of the first to start educating boys and girls equally in the late 19th century. In that sense, a gender policy that helps increase women’s rights is certainly an important part of national development.

Speaking in Parliament earlier this month, Gender Affairs Minister Joan Yuille-Williams gave the assurance that the written version of the 2005-2006 Budget, which killed the Draft Policy, was not in fact the Government’s official position. What that paragraph referred to, she claimed, was a version of the policy intended only for internal distribution, whereas there was a second version which had been approved by the Government.

Minister Yuille-Williams, however, left all the key questions unanswered. The paragraph in the Budget which Prime Minister Patrick Manning did not read said that "there are certain recommendations in the document to which the Government does not and will not subscribe." Ms Yuille-Williams did not specify what these recommendations were, although the public was already well aware that they related to public debate on reform of the abortion law and on human rights for all persons, including homosexuals. More importantly, she did not say whether these recommendations had been removed from the approved version.

In remaining silent on this, the minister contradicted the words of her own ministry, which in May published a print ad in the newspapers which said that the ministry "looks forward to the speedy but studied approach to this national dialogue which it respects as mandatory for good democratic governance." Has there been such dialogue in the following months, leading to the final version still not published for the public to see? If so, the minister should make this clear. If not, she should say why not.

If there has been widespread consultation, it appears to have been done with specific interest groups rather than the national community as a whole. And, if we are to judge from the issues listed by the NGOs, it appears that the policy still needs some airing. For instance, what is this talk about failure to implement minimum wages legislation? As far as we are aware, the Government has done so. What needs to be discussed is whether such legislation impacts positively or negatively on women and poverty. The economic evidence suggests the latter, which means that women’s organisations should actually be lobbying for the repeal of a minimum wage that is not in line with market forces. And how does the policy address inequity and employment discrimination, while preserving efficiency and entrepreneurial autonomy?

These are the kind of issues which need wider debate before becoming official government policy. But, so far, Minister Yuille-Williams has left citizens completely in the dark, and it is high time she shed some light on the matter.