During the Christmas recess of the House of Parliament, I have taken time to read the four long overdue annual reports of the Human Rights Commission. Many of you will know that I am a former executive officer of the Human Rights Commission and I have eagerly awaited the publication of these reports that provide us as a community with biographical and statistical snap shots of how we treat each other. Quite frankly I was not a little discouraged by some of the snap shots in our community photo journal. In some ways many things have remained the same from the heart-felt images that were shared with me during my earlier tenure with the Human Rights Commission. One of my first duties when I came to public life as a Senator in February, 2002 was to shortly thereafter share with the community some of my thoughts back then on concerns that I had in how we generally treat our women. This article we printed shortly after a single mother of three daughters was brutally attacked and savaged stabbed to death by her violent male partner outside a service station. That woman had been one of my clients a few years earlier when I served as a labour relations officer for the government shortly after I returned home from a long career overseas.

What appears below is a reprint of that early first effort I publicly made in sharing what for me was a growing concern about how we treat many of our women. Parenthetically the images presented then have remarkable congruence with many of the findings contained in the recent annual reports of the Human Rights Commission. Sometimes for a message to be heard it must be repeated and it is in this spirit that I offer again for your consideration this earlier and still relevant article which was originally printed in May, 2002 in this paper. Let me thank the publisher for running this article again:

Just recently a work colleague shared the story of a young woman who found out she was pregnant. Young, alone, embarrassed and fearing she did not have the support of her family or any employment to assist her, she withdrew from those around her and made her car her new home.

This event was not happening in some distant, far off place. This story is about a young Bermudian woman.

These circumstances upset and troubled me because I did not want to imagine an experience like this taking place during these enlightened times, here in our beautiful country. I did not want to accept that, though we have made great strides in our attitudes about pregnancy, and particularly pregnancy as it related to single young women, that such an event was possible.

I do not believe that the circumstances of this particular incident are wide-spread in our community but it troubles me that such an event should occur at all. I am actively seeking more information about this young woman in an effort to offer assistance to her and her child.

In the interim, I have reflected on the many years that I spent working in the area of human rights and anti-discrimination.

I remember many cases I have dealt with of women being discriminated in employment because of their pregnancy. Most of my work in this regard was performed overseas, far away from Bermuda, but I know the same discrimination because of pregnancy has long been a problem here as well.

I have come to understand that even though we enact progressive laws and try to offer safety and support to those most in need, there are still times when we unwittingly make up the rules as we go along, with the effect that the vulnerable and the needy are disenfranchised and treated unfairly.

I think we all need to consider some basic principles that can galvanise our understanding and subsequent treatment of women who become pregnant and who need to continue to work to support themselves and their babies.

The 1981 Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on sex, and establishes that the right to equal treatment without discrimination because of sex. This includes the right to equal treatment without discrimination because a woman is or may become pregnant. This right may include meeting the special needs women have in circumstances such as miscarriage, abortion, complications because of pregnancy or childbirth, conditions which result from an abortion or miscarriage, and recovery from childbirth.

Denying or restricting employment opportunities in hiring, promotions or transfer because a woman is, was or may become pregnant or because she has had a baby is a violation of the Human Rights Act.

Women's issues have been largely ignored and neglected under this present government. In the early stages of this current government, a petition was presented to the Premier with over two thousand signatures requesting the government address the requirement of the International Labour Organisation dealing with the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Up to this present time we have heard no word about the progress, if any, that the government is making in strides in making sure that all our women are given equal and equitable treatment. The Bermuda Government has still not ratified the CEDAW Convention almost three years after the presentation of the petition to the Premier.

The Government's C.U.R.E. Programme has been entirely focused on race, even when there were indications from various sectors of the community that the government should equally be reviewing the impact gender, specifically female, in the work place. Those calls for the review of women's rights within the work place have largely gone unaddressed by this current government. I am told that women make up approximately 52 percent of the Bermuda work place and the government has not given attention to many of the issues of women. I believe the Government must be seen taking the lead in addressing the unfair treatment of women in the work place. Specifically, women are paid in general about 30 percent less than their male counterparts. Additionally, most benefit program premium structures are designed around the notion of some type of ideal family of a father and a mother and their children. Therefore, single mothers find themselves paying for benefits that are not tailored to their particular needs. One possible solution to this situation would be for employers to offer single mothers the choice of selecting a flex-plan as a part of the bundle of benefits available to them in the workplace.

These Flexi-plans, to which I refer, would have the effect of being able to be tailored to the needs of single mothers and their families. The benefit plan would address the developing needs of the single parent family through time as well as offer the alternative of greater pension savings for the woman in her middle and later years of employment, when there is greater need for her to plan for her own retirement from the work place.

Currently many women work well beyond the point of retirement simply because they have to do so due to lack of income. We all know of situations where single parent women, specifically, work together to look out for each other's families by sharing rental accommodation, food and utilities, as well as common child care responsibilities.

At some point as a society, we have to stop and give consideration to the adverse impact that many women experience throughout their work lives. No doubt we have all become accustomed to seeing women struggle to make ends meet. It is a part of our taken for granted world, but may I suggest to you that we all need to take a more active interest in the lives and the circumstances of our women, and in particular, our single mothers.

Increasingly as our entire world is now becoming more defined in terms of those who have and those who do not, we need to take a closer look at the disparities that are growing in the lives of our single mothers and their families. We in the United Bermuda Party have proposed a study be conducted to enable us to more fully understand the scope of the economic disparities and the impacts on our families. This information would be a part of the basis for developing dynamic social policy for moving forward.

Sadly we are seeing the rise in the incidence of domestic violence in our community and some have linked this increase to economic pressures on our families. We all remember with horror the tragic event that transpired in our community several weeks ago when a single mother of three girls was brutally murdered in a public place. Immediately after this terrible event, there was an increase in the number of protective orders issued by our courts in an attempt to protect our women from violent partners. The initial shock, disbelief, horror and anger of the tragic death of this young mother are passed. The community has endeavoured to rally around the three daughters left behind with loving support and the setting up of a trust fund to cover the cost of their education.

But what role will this government play in the passage of firm yet fair legislation that will offer support and safety to many of our women who fear abuse from a partner? Will it be the same position that they took on the issue of community crime with it's "softly, softly" approach? We certainly hope not. We do not want the government to enact harsh, retributive legislation against our men, but we do believe the government has a responsibility to recognise the obligation that is owed to our women who have the right to live in safety and without fear of an abusive partner.

We believe that the government has the responsibility to immediately enact legislation that is progressive, forward thinking and has the effect of providing some real security for women who are abused. If males who abuse females, which is generally the case, but not exclusively so, will not behave because they are unwilling to control their aggressive impulses, then let them behave because they are restrained by firm, unequivocal consequences and penalties from the law if they chose to act out.

We often swoon ourselves into indifference in considering the needs of our women because unlike many women of the rest of the world, our women live by fairly good standards. We tell ourselves that after all they are treated well. They travel abroad fairly frequently; enjoy going to musical and sporting events throughout the island; they wear current and fashionable clothes; most live in standard and acceptable housing situations; and they have more disposable cash than many of their female neighbours in other places in the world. So what are they concerned about?

As I have tried to suggest throughout this article, many women have a great deal to be concerned about, not the least being that they are women in the first instance and are often the objects of a different set of rules than men. For instance, they are often paid less than men for similar services in the work place; are covered generally by inadequate employee benefit programs; are still the object of discrimination in some of our laws; they are objects of domestic violence in their homes and sometimes in the community; and many retire at close to the poverty level or have to work instead well after the mandatory period for retirement because of the failure to provide financially for themselves. Other than these few things, they have nothing to be concerned about at all.

@EDITRULE:

Neville E. Darrell JPMP is the United Bermuda Party MP for Warwick West and the former executive officer of the Human Rights Commission.