"GBV in the Caribbean is influenced by a combination of cultural norms and socio-economic disparities. Until we address these norms, no matter how many laws we pass, no matter how many millions of dollars we give for reforming the courts and making them a nice place to come to, until we make people feel empowered and until we are assured that within intimate relationships and all other relationships, that these are relationships of equal human beings, we will continue to see the same problems recur."

This three-day event, held from December 4-6, 2024, brought together parliamentarians, civil society representatives, and experts from 11 Caribbean countries. Organized by ParlAmericas, the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, UN Women Multi-Country Office (MCO) - Caribbean, and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the workshop aimed to enhance parliamentarians' capacity to adopt an inclusive and gender-responsive approach to their legislative responsibilities

In Barbados, women spend nearly 2.5 times more time on childcare than men, and close to three times more performing domestic work, childcare and adult care, combined. Globally, figures show, women perform 75% of unpaid care work globally or 4 hours and 25 minutes daily. That is three times men’s average of 1 hour and 23 minutes per day.

“It is pause for thought that this cost in terms of GDP of violence against women and girls in Grenada is 5.24%. These are significant resources that could be directed elsewhere. This is an area that I hope as duty bearers we can look at closely with a gender-budgeting lens, our new way of doing business."

When Hurricane Beryl tore through the Caribbean in early summer, it left a trail of destroyed homes, unpassable roads, and ruined local infrastructure. As nations begin to rebuild after Beryl and brace themselves for even more storms, UN Women has been on the ground and working to ensure that women are fully integrated into recovery efforts.

Across the world and the SIDS, women depend more on, yet have less access to resources. Women are employed in sectors with high vulnerability to disasters and climate change, concentrated in tourism-related services and sales sectors, making them more exposed to economic shocks during and after the crisis than men, whose employment is more diversified. Unleashing the power of women as first responders to crisis, disaster risk reduction, and building economic and environmental resilience is crucial to achieving sustainable development.

The Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) and UN Women Multi-Country Office (MCO) - Caribbean have partnered to implement a regional initiative aimed at determining the contribution of unpaid domestic care work to the economy, introducing targeted questions to the Continuous Labour Force Survey.

Under the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, UN Women implementing partner Atlantic Council brought together UN agencies, Government officials from several departments, civil society representatives, academics and students to discuss the challenges and opportunities around ending GBV and enhancing women’s economic empowerment.

Gender responsive budgeting (GRB) is a strategy to achieve gender equality, where budgets or proposed spending is analysed and designed to ensure interventions to eliminate inequalities between women and men and boys and girls, are adequately financed.

Women need to be engaged more in growth industries for increased sustainability, thereby reducing their economic dependence and vulnerability to gender-based violence.

Request for Proposal - Research Firm to support Gender-Responsive Analysis and Research on Institutional, Policy and Service-Delivery Frameworks for Social Protection in Jamaica

Request for Proposal - Research Firms to support a Gender-Responsive Analysis and Research on Institutional, Policy and Service-Delivery Frameworks for Social Protection in three (3) Eastern Caribbean countries

Autonomous social movements and relevant CSOs, including those representing youth and groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination/marginalization, more effectively influence and advance progress on GEWE and ending VAWG. Resources are being made available under Outcome 1 and the Spotlight Initiative in Jamaica and Caribbean Regional programme respectively for non-governmental organisations to provide regional programmatic support to the UN Women MCO Caribbean.

Dr. Ronya Foy Connor is the National Gender Development Coordinator in the Ministry of Social Development and Education in the Government of Anguilla. As a woman in public leadership and academic, Dr Foy Connor is strategically positioned to challenge gender inequalities in all forms.

Bridgetown, Barbados, 27th May 2021:- As countries develop COVID-19 recovery strategies, investments in infrastructure must include the care economy, including measures to reduce and redistribute unpaid care work. Childcare, elder care and care of the sick is as crucial to a functioning economy as any road, electric grid or building. If workers, many of whom are women, drop out of the paid economy because of their unpaid care work responsibilities, the entire economy is negatively impacted. ...

Hosted by CARICOM and UN Women MCO Caribbean, Ministers with responsibility for Gender Affairs, Parliamentarians, heads of the National Gender Machineries, representatives of civil society and academia begun meeting to define a coordinated position on Caribbean needs and priorities to feed into the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Aligned with 2020 theme, “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”, the Report issues call to action to achieve gender equality and justice for this generation, 25 years after the Beijing Platform for Action.

Jamaica has been encouraged to work to realise the vision of a Prosperous Inclusive and Enabling society, that enables women to have an equal opportunity for a share of the “Economic PIE”.

UN Women Deputy Representative Tonni Brodber. Photo: UN Women/Sharon Carter-Burke Guyana, July 2017 : Work has begun on a two-year project towards enhancing access to justice with the Judiciary of Guyana. UN Women Multi-Country Office – Caribbean, the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO) and the JURIST-CCJ project which is supported by the Government of Canada Global Affairs are collaborating on this initiative with the Judiciary of Guyana. This project includes...

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UNICEF, UN Women, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) commend the Bahamas for the steps it is taking to allow the Bahamian people to vote on 7 June 2016 on four amendments that promote gender equality in citizenship matters under the Constitution of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.