The Virgin Islands has made much progress toward empowering women and girls in recent decades, but International Women’s Day this month was a timely reminder that much remains to be done.
To get a sense of the territory’s progress in this regard, consider the many women in senior leadership positions in the VI today.
In the public sector, they include permanent secretaries, the attorney general, the director of public prosecutions, the speaker of the House, judges, and many more. In the private sector, they include leaders of many of the territory’s largest and most important businesses and non-profit organisations.
Successive governments have also shown a commitment to enacting policies and laws that promote equity by protecting and empowering women and girls. The 2007 Constitution, for instance, prohibits discrimination based on sex, and it was followed in the early 2010s by a gender policy and a domestic violence law and policy.
The government’s Office of Gender Affairs and the non-profit sector have also helped the cause, with the Family Support Network in particular working tirelessly for decades to protect domestic violence victims and advocate for policy reform.
Meanwhile, private companies have increasingly sought to implement in-house policies and procedures that discourage gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.
But these positive steps are not enough.
Unfortunately, well-meaning legislation and policies don’t always translate into the needed action. As a result, many VI women and girls still face discrimination and harassment in the workplace, at school and on the streets.
Additionally, domestic abuse, sexual offences and other crimes that disproportionately affect females are still far too common in this society. Often, perpetrators are enabled by a culture of silence that has been exacerbated by a lack of transparency from the police and the courts alike.
Meaningful reform, then, requires redoubling efforts to enforce laws and policies already in place. It also requires adding new ones, such as the long-delayed Sexual Offences Bill and related legislation designed to bring the VI’s legislative framework up to international standards. We were glad to see these bills promised in this year’s Speech from the Throne.
To help accelerate progress, the territory should also look to one place where women are still dramatically under-represented: the House of Assembly. Currently, only three of the 13 elected HOA members are female. Worse, that percentage is the highest ever, and it was not achieved until 2019.
Leading up to the next general election, we hope other women will join the political arena and that voters will support them.
For inspiration, they might consider the words of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: Asked when there would be enough women on the nine-member court, Ms. Ginsburg replied, “When there are nine.”
One of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 is ending “all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.”
The Virgin Islands must ensure that it meets this target. Then it must go further.
