Gender Inequality In The Caribbean Analysis

The age old issue of Gender Inequality continues to prevail as a major hurdle in the road to human development and remains deeply entrenched within the folds of society. According to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, gender refers to the socially constructed and learned attributes and relationships that exist between women and men and boys and girls, along with those that exist between women and those that exist between men. Judith Butler in her book Gender Troubles (1990) believes gender to be “a stylize repetition of acts…a (socially) constructed identity… (and) performative accomplishments (put on for and by society)”. This is to say that Gender is separate and wholly apart from sex and is a set

The UNFPA Caribbean states that the Caribbean has one of the largest recorded rates of HIV/AIDS cases within the Americas, reporting rates as high as 1.9% and 3.1% of incidents within the population (find out in respect to what regarding statistics) second only to Africa (carrying rates of 7.5% and 8.5%). The rising epidemic is a product of and continues to be driven by factors arising from various forms of gender inequalities which include economic factors, religious, social and cultural taboos, a lack of readily available information on the disease and the absence of proper health care accessibility. Men Who Have Sex with Men and Commercial Sex Workers are put at an extremely high risk of contracting HIV/AIDS due to their high risk lifestyles and behaviors. CSW’s generally have high numbers in regards to sex partners, this combined with inconsistent condom use, laws, various socio-cultural taboos and the extreme homophobia faced by MSM’s within the Caribbean, remains as major threats to both groups and contributes in the spread of the HIV epidemic. Caribbean Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM’s) and Commercial Sex Workers (CSW’s) within both Jamaica and Barbados, have an increased risk of contracting HIV/AIDS because of their high risk lifestyles, however, due to a lack of political representation, readily accessible information on the disease, along with punitive

Prostitution – often times referred to as the oldest profession in the world – while illegal in both Jamaica and Barbados, remains very active and widely tolerated. The Sexual Offences Act for Jamaica 2009 (Section 23 [1]) states that any person who knowingly lives wholly or in part on the earnings of prostitutes or in any place whether public or private persistently commits an offence and is liable. The criminalization of the act of prostitution by both Caribbean islands is one of many factors that add to the HIV epidemic, and it is these policing policies that lead to the dislocation of Sex Workers which forces them into areas and conditions and positions where they are less safe and unable to negotiate conditions, such as condom use. Sex workers in both Jamaica and Barbados oftentimes do not have the necessary personal or social status needed to negotiate safe sex practices for threat of violence or the loss of