The Launch of the Office of the CARICOM Advocate for Gender Justice took place on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2010 at the CARICOM Headquarters in Georgetown. The foundations for this project lay in the decisions from Meetings of Bureaux of Gender/Women’s Affairs and the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD). 

Originally funded under the CARICOM / Spain Cooperation Agreement, the establishment of an Office of the Special Advocate for Gender Justice seeks to develop a more coordinated and integrated approach to reducing gender-based violence (GBV) in the CARICOM region.  Specifically the aim is to:

coordinate the research on GBV within the CARICOM Region; and
raise awareness of the need for further action to develop and strengthen integrated responses which address all social and legal sectors for the purposes of protection, provision of services; justice; and prevention.

Dr. Rosina Wiltshire, who was appointed as the First CARICOM Advocate for Gender Justice, has 14 years experience in various capacities at the United Nations Development Programme including her most recent as the UN Resident Coordinator/ UNDP Resident Representative for Barbados and the OECS.  She also has over twenty years teaching experience at the tertiary level. A prolific writer, Dr. Wiltshire has published in the areas of Foreign Policy, Caribbean Regional Integration, Migration and Development, Social Dimensions of Structural Adjustment, Gender and Development and Women, Environment and Development.

Partners for this initiative include:

National: Bureaux of Women’s/Gender Affairs; departments of health, education justice and  security; Central Statistical Offices; other relevant and competent authorities; and NGOs in CARICOM Member States
Regional: NGOs such as CAFRA, DAWN Caribbean
International:  UN agencies through the Working Group on Gender-based Violence.