Urgent and Intentional Work is necessary for the advancement of Afrodescendant people, particularly women, and the sustainable development of Black Communities

In observance of International Day for People of African Descent – 31 August, UN Women MCO Caribbean is featuring Caribbean citizen - Bahamian national Gaynel Curry, a member of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD).

Knowledge of human rights and non-discrimination and an awareness of the importance of activism and advocacy came early for Bahamian national, Gaynel Curry. She fondly recalls childhood moments around the dining room table hearing her mother tell stories about the Women’s Suffrage Movement in The Bahamas, the pride she felt voting alongside thousands of other women for the first time in the 1962 general elections, and the excitement of the 1967 general elections that brought about a major shift in the political landscape and majority Black representation in the Parliament of The Bahamas for the first time. A familiar memory of her mother going door to door in the community encouraging adults to embrace the long-fought for right to vote and the novel responsibility that universal suffrage brought, especially for women and Blacks in the Country, in terms of their role in building a strong nation.

With this consciousness, Gaynel started working with the United Nations in the late 1990s, when her passion for activism really came alive. Her first area of work was with the Committee for the Rights of the Child; leading the NGO working group established to facilitate the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other Committee assignments.  Gaynel worked with several other Treaty Bodies, including those monitoring the implementation of the Convention Against Torture, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. 

This Caribbean changemaker has led work within the UN system on the rights of women and girls, including ending violence against women, trafficking in persons, and sexual violence in conflict, in countries such as South Sudan, East Timor, and Afghanistan. Gaynel advocated for Afrodescendant people and Afrodescendant women in particular within the UN as well. 

"I believe that we need to be intentional about how
we deal with this issue of the Rights of women of
African descent… Within the work environment, they
appear to be at the bottom when we look at wages
and salaries and they take longer to move through
the ranks in terms of promotions… Discrimination,
stereotyping and gender roles often impede their
advancement in leadership roles."

“The underlying themes of women, children, racism, really resonated with me, because of my own experience as a Black woman working in the United Nations system for some 24 years… As the only Black professional of some 70 professionals in my branch when I started in 1998, I truly felt, for the first time, the reality of being a minority, a Black woman. Facing microaggressions and feeling undervalued and invisible, generated in me a kind of fatigue that lives in the cells of many Black people. I think my fight against racial discrimination really evolved from there”.

“Among my priorities was trying to get the UN and its partners to do more to protect, respect and promote the rights of Black people, especially women, including in country and regional level programming. It meant trying to encourage human rights NGOs, academic institutions and UN entities such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN Women, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), among others to more systematically look at the intersections of race and gender in their programming and research. In addition to women, focus should be placed on marginalised and vulnerable groups facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, including Black men and youth, persons with disabilities, children, migrants and LGBTQI persons. Building programmes that arrest racial discrimination and advance human rights among these groups is crucial.”

Further spurred on by the 2020 George Floyd killing and the global movement for change, Gaynel resigned from the UN and explored opportunities to work with independent mechanisms to advance racial equality and justice globally. This led to her country - The Bahamas and CARICOM - nominating her and her successful appointment by the UN Human Rights Council to the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD). Established in 2021, PFPAD is one of the mechanisms of the UN Human Rights System that works to end racism and to promote the human rights, lives and livelihoods of People of African Descent. 

“As a Permanent Forum Expert Member, my focus in the last three years has been on ensuring that we frame our work in the context of justice: economic justice, climate justice, reparatory justice and gender justice. I started off with gender justice and women’s rights. I believe that we need to be intentional about how we deal with this issue of the Rights of women of African descent. Black women appear to be at the bottom of almost every social development index. Within the work environment, they appear to be at the bottom when we look at wages and salaries and they take longer to move through the ranks in terms of promotions. They are disproportionately disadvantaged socio-economically and experience higher levels of poverty.  Discrimination, stereotyping and gender roles often impede their advancement in leadership roles.  In terms of health, Black women have among the highest rates of maternal mortality across the Americas and often face high incidents of violence.

In this (Caribbean) region Afro-descendant women have done well in education at all levels. Using The Bahamas as an example, Gaynel says female graduates of the University of The Bahamas have in recent years made up more than 70% of graduates but this has not translated to political leadership or leadership in business where women make up less than 20%.   The Caribbean has produced some strong Black women political leaders, but Black women remain in the minority in Parliaments and in the business sectors. “Disaggregated data is needed to explore issues of intersectionality in The Bahamas and across the region”.

Gaynel says representation is important but challenging when you are the only one. She calls for more women of African descent in diplomacy and in leadership roles in international organisations such as the UN. What she has committed to is bridging the gap between the international and the national, ensuring that at the international level there are more Black women representatives. Similarly, at the national level, ensuring enhanced understanding of international and regional processes for the advancement of Afrodescendant people, especially women and the sustainable development of Black Communities. 

In a break from her work with the UN, Gaynel returned home to the Bahamas more than 10 years ago to help the Government set up the Department of Gender and Family Affairs in the Ministry of Social Services. As the first Director, she made every effort to ensure that women’s human rights and international human rights standards were incorporated in the guidelines and policy documents intended to promote gender equality, which remains a concern in The Bahamas. 

She recalls, the work that was done in terms of training on the CEDAW Convention and more broadly on women’s rights, taking into consideration multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that impede the rights of women, including on the Family islands (The Bahamas is made up of 700 islands where only around 30 are inhabited. The entire group except New Providence where the capital Nassau sits, is referred to as the Family Islands). “I went from Family Island to Family Island, and I talked with groups of women about CEDAW and women’s rights, really trying to break it down to everyday terms for them. I think we walked away from every single one of those family islands, feeling that we had shifted a little bit the mindset of some of the people, particularly young women, toward an understanding of a culture of rights; this was very rewarding for me.” 

Now lecturing in the law faculty at the University of the Bahamas, Gaynel says she found it very fulfilling to be told by two of her students that they remembered when she had come to the Family Islands to speak about women’s rights and that her presentation had influenced them to study law and to work to promote women’s rights.

“That has been one of my proudest moments; knowing that my work to promote gender equality, human rights and non-discrimination had resonated with Family Islanders. That is what I meant by taking it from the global to the national in a language and context that speaks directly to them, not some, you know, fancy terminology.

It's about their daily lives. What can happen to and for them and their children? You know what can happen in their homes and in their workplaces and so forth. So that is what I have tried to do in terms of bringing it from the global to the community level and really trying to shift mindsets about human rights. And I continue to do that every day, every day I walk in the classroom, that's my goal.”

In observation of UN International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, please also see our link to our story where UN Women Addresses the Government of Barbados’ Commemoration.