Guyana records major improvements in closing Gender Gap

The Guyana government is celebrating the recent release of the Global Gender Gap report, boasting that several measures which were put in place by the PPP administration are responsible for the significant progress recorded in relation to women’s rights.

Governance Minister, Gail Teixeira said the country has made major progress over the last year to achieve gender equality.

“So we are doing quite well and to break that down because I think many times people make comments about Guyana and these reports are very useful to show the progress that Guyana is making because these are measured from a variety of documents from the inter-parliamentary union, the world bank and a number of agencies these data are drawn from. So we have moved from 53^rd to 35 that is a big leap in one year,” Teixeira said.

Getting into specifics, the Minister said progress was made for women in the areas of job opportunities and access to financial services, equal assets, life expectancy, and economic opportunities.

Improvements have also been recorded in education, political participation and access to justice for women, the Minister said.

“It is considered that Guyana has equal rights with regards to the access to justice, so again this is an important indicator that women are not discriminated against in relation to access to justice,” the Minister said.

The Governance Minister believes that the country will record further improvements next year as the government continues to put systems in place to ensure women participation and the protection of women.

The Global Gender Gap Report which was first published in 2006 by the World Economic Forum, is an index designed to measure gender equality around the world.