UN Women Executive Director to emphasize human security and safety of women during her visit to the Caribbean

UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will be visiting the Caribbean region for the first time this week, making stops in Barbados, followed by Jamaica. In addition to meeting with civil society representatives and high-level officials in Barbados, the Executive Director will formalize a partnership between UN Women and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), to work together in the Eastern Caribbean and Haiti to ensure gender-responsive humanitarian action.

In the face of rising climate disasters, including Tropical Storm Erika last year and Hurricane Matthew this year, UN Women is working to promote community resilience in the Caribbean. A key emphasis of the Executive Director’s visit will be on the importance of human security and safety of women and girls in the region.

In Barbados, the Executive Director will meet with judicial officials who are developing a Gender Equality Protocol for Magistrates and Judges, which will set up measures to promote gender equality through the application of international human rights standards in domestic judicial processes and address gender-related human rights violations.

She will also formalize partnerships with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to work together to end gender-based violence, as well as promote evidence-based monitoring using gender statistics. The Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians endorsed the CARICOM Gender Equality Indicators as a tool to collectively measure progress on the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Sustainable Development Goals.

In Jamaica, the Executive Director will meet with government officials to advocate for the finalization and adoption of the National Strategic Action Plan on Gender-Based Violence. She will be meeting with the Statistical Institute for Jamaica, which is gathering data that will be invaluable for monitoring Jamaica’s progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality and its related target (5.2) on ending violence against women and girls.

The Executive Director’s visit to the Caribbean will conclude with a celebratory walk with women domestic workers at the famed Emancipation Park in Kingston, Jamaica, to celebrate Jamaica’s recent ratification of ILO Convention on Decent Work (C189) and to publicly acknowledge the dedication and commitment of the Jamaica Household Workers’ Union.