Celebrating with our Belizean Women

March is a month when we honour the contribution of our women and the role they play in the development of our nation. This special time provides us with the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women everywhere.  Here at home it is also a time to honour the courage of our Belizean women, to acknowledge their fight against poverty and ignorance; to renew our promise as a nation of people living with freedom, justice and equality and to commit to strive for a society free of all kinds of discrimination, particularly discrimination against women. We in the People’s United Party are proud to have been a partner in this struggle.  It was under the PUP that we successfully advocated and achieved the right of women to vote.  We are also proud to be that Party that successfully established and instituted the Family Court.  We feel a great sense of pride in being the Party that strengthened our laws to protect our women against violence and provided more opportunities for women to improve their standard of living. Of course we know that enormous challenges lie ahead for us, but we believe that more can be done and we commit to continue the work for the improvement of women in Belize.  We understand that our responsibility as a Political Party is to advocate for greater inclusion of women in decision making.  We also understand that our work must always be influenced by a sincere desire to build one nation, with one people, united in the cause of the development of our country.  We know that to have opportunity and to bring about prosperity, everyone must participate. For this to happen we must start working with our Party.   We have to include women at all levels, ensuring that they have equal participation in the decision making process and in the leadership.  This is why two of our three senators in the National Assembly are women and on our Party’s executive, we have increased the number of women.  As a party we must remain committed to this cause so that when we return to government we can create the conditions to improve the lives of all our people, including women who are among the poorest in our society.  To do this, we will have to continue to strengthen the laws to ensure that women have access to jobs and that they receive equal pay for equal work.  We must also protect our children who are girls by ensuring that they are safe in their homes and in their schools.  We must educate our communities and ensure that in our institutions equality is not only preached, but practiced as well. Together as a nation we must work to bring an end to violence against women and in general to defeat crime. As a tribute to the legions of women who came before and navigated the path of fighting for our independence and for justice, we must hold firm to the principles of equal rights for women. Of course women themselves must participate in this struggle, but as a people with a constitution that guarantees equal rights, everyone must make this a prime responsibility. As we continue to celebrate the contribution of women to the development of our nation, we in the People’s United Party call on women to take an active part in our political work.  We also call on the women of Belize to support each other in advancing the role of Belizean women in leadership positions. We join others in acknowledging the indispensible role of women in building of our nation and call on all Belizeans to join with our women in the struggle for equality and in the important task of creating a nation fit for everyone.