Basseterre, St. Kitts, November 22, 2015 (SKNIS)—Minister of Gender Affairs, Honourable Wendy Phipps, has spoken of a broader approach to gender affairs by removing the gender bias normally associated with the ministry’s programmes. Acknowledging that there are gender issues relating to men as well, the minister said that new initiatives will begin focusing on the men in our community.
She noted that with the prison population increasing with men between the ages of 18 and 44, most of the crimes committed are young men inflicting harm to other men. Additionally, she pointed out the issues that are derived from fatherless homes, as more than 50% of families in St. Kitts and Nevis are headed by women. While noting that some women have done good jobs raising their children in the absence of a father, the minister pointed to the importance of the male influence in the lives of children.
“What we are realizing now is that our gender programmes have to be balanced along gender lines. You have to have programmes for women and programmes for men,” Minister Phipps said on a recent edition of the radio programme “Working For You.”
Meanwhile, the minister noted she would like to see more families determined in a marriage context. She was keen to point out that the Government is not mandating that all men should marry, but that studies have shown that families in a marriage context or even parents living together who are unmarried create a more stable family structure.
“(The studies) are showing you that the chances are better even if you have two parents who are not married, who live in the same household; the children have a better or different, or elevated sense of self,” Minister Phipps said. “I’m not saying that the Government is saying that everybody needs to go out and run a marriage advocacy mission but we are saying that it helps,” she added.
Minister Phipps also called on fathers to be more involved in the raising of their children so they can teach their daughters how a man is supposed to treat her when she becomes a woman and for sons—how to be a man and father.
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