Both genders in peril in Guyana.

A FOUR-YEAR OLD STUDY CONDUCTED ON THE GENDERED FORTUNES OF
GUYANESE PRESENTS A MIX-BAG FOR MEN AND WOMEN AND BOYS AND GIRLS.
According to the document, the labour sector continuously exploits men and boys, and the country’s
socio-cultural, religious and economic structures remain immune to global changes.
The study, ‘Final Costed Strategic Plan for Women’s Development and Addressing the
Underachievement among Boys’ by Dr Maria Amelia Viteri and executed under the A Partnership
for National Unity, Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition government, women and girls are
still held hostage to the oppressive and suffocating stranglehold of those negative national structures.
In the case of the country’s male population, “rural, Amerindian, as well as marginalised boys are
more vulnerable to exploitative labour conditions such as those found in the mining and agricultural
industries.”
Both genders, according to the four-year-old study, are victims’ hegemonic masculinity understood as
the most dominant form of manhood “which positions certain boys and all girls as subordinate.” This
form of masculinity is characterised by devaluing everything culturally “understood as feminine,
including restricting the expression of emotions.”
On the other hand, “toughness, aggressiveness and proving one’s heterosexuality through homophobia
are other characteristics of negative, hegemonic masculinities which are prominent in the region,” the
study explained.
Boys’ learning suffers, because of the country’s “structural economic inequalities limit the ability of
boys to continue their education (and) these inequalities, combined with gender norms learned
through the family, religion and schooling, favour exploitative labour conditions and put boys at a
disadvantage, which in turn impacts the underachievement of boys in Guyana.”
It continued: “Young indigenous men are at particular risk in the agricultural sectors as they are more
often exposed to pesticides and high-risk tasks.”
Local academic, Ms. Paulette Henry, in a 2015 article highlighted the apparent link between exposure
to pesticides and the high suicide rate among males in the country. “The country is ranked fourth in
suicides per capita worldwide and has the highest rate amongst South American and Caribbean
nations,” according to Henry’s research done six years ago.

In the past five decades, Guyana has embraced several international treaties and conventions to help
narrow development gaps affecting the genders: these include ratification of 11 human rights treaties
and the incorporation of their obligations into national legislation in gender violence; medical
termination of pregnancy; indigenous people’s rights; child protection; equal right to property; family
and parenting rights; social security; labour and women’s participation in the country’s political
processes.
“Additionally, the country has several initiatives across different sectors to promote gender equality as
a means to achieve equality and non-discrimination,” Dr Viteri observed in the 65-page document.
However, these 5-decade long consistent, Viteri noted that “gender violence and inequality continue
to impede the path to development for women due to the following causes:
 cultural and particularly religious practices that allow tolerance of violent conduct toward
women and children which are justified as grounds “of discipline or ways of enforcing
behaviour change.”
 some segments of the Guyanese population rank religious principles to be superior to the
country’s national laws making the latter ineffective.
 The justice system is incapable of meeting the demands of nationals because of its geographic
distribution coupled with scarce resources of the courts and police, and,
 A lack of understanding of the distinct nature of gender violence among public servants and
actors in the judicial system which creates frustration when dealing with victims. “Public
servants often witness victims returning to violent situations and this creates the sense of
having a failed result.”
Guyanese women, the study said, have complained of discriminatory and degrading treatment when
trying to access services from the police and nation’s justice system.
As a culturally, religiously, ethnically and racially diverse peoples, there are, unsurprisingly, a
diversity of cultural visions making it harder to elicit compliance with the law across the board.
According to the study, this heterogeneity among Guyanese makes “both the laws themselves and the
capacity of the State to enforce their compliance relative to those perceptions.”
“This is true even in egregious violations of the law such as child abuse and non-observance of the
age of consent,” the research posited.
The diversity of possibilities here has resulted in unresponsive law enforcement; poor rule of law, and
inadequate response of public services related to gender violence. It has also created lack of trust
among users when seeking assistance from public service agencies which “undermine the

effectiveness of laws and create a serious risk of rights violations, particularly for children,” it
warned.
These are commonly found in Regions’ 4 (Demerara/Mahaica); 6 (East Berbice/Corentyne) and 7,
(Cuyuni/Mazaruni).
“In regions 4 and 6, the most prominent problem is related to religious views. In the case of
Region 7, reports state that there are contradictions between cultural traditions and the law,”
the study observed.