Women Parliamentarians (WPTT) condemn ”sexist” remarks made during Budget debate

The Women Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans of Trinidad and To­ba­go (WPTT) have con­demned sex­u­al ref­er­ences and in­nu­en­do di­rect­ed at women par­lia­men­tar­i­ans dur­ing the re­cent bud­get de­bate, say­ing po­lit­i­cal dis­agree­ments must not jus­ti­fy lan­guage that de­means women.

In a state­ment, the or­gan­i­sa­tion said women in pub­lic of­fice should be recog­nised for their com­pe­tence, con­tri­bu­tions and ser­vice to the coun­try, rather than judged by their phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance, pre­sumed sex­u­al con­duct or al­leged per­son­al re­la­tion­ships.

“Sex­ism does not be­come ac­cept­able be­cause it is di­rect­ed at a po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent, nor does it be­come harm­less when pre­sent­ed as hu­mour or po­lit­i­cal ban­ter,” the WPTT said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion, which com­pris­es women par­lia­men­tar­i­ans across po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions, warned that such re­marks risk un­der­min­ing the dig­ni­ty of women in pub­lic life and dis­cour­ag­ing women and girls from pur­su­ing lead­er­ship roles.

It said Par­lia­ment should be a safe space for women to par­tic­i­pate in na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing with­out fear that their ap­pear­ance, sex­u­al­i­ty or pri­vate lives will be­come the sub­ject of pub­lic ridicule.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that par­lia­men­tary de­bate can be ro­bust and ad­ver­sar­i­al, the WPTT said dis­agree­ments over pol­i­cy and po­lit­i­cal con­duct must not be used to jus­ti­fy re­marks that un­der­mine women's dig­ni­ty.

The state­ment doesn't di­rect­ly re­fer to, but it fol­lows crit­i­cism of Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro Phillip Watts, who com­ment­ed on the ap­pear­ance and sex­u­al moral­i­ty of fe­male MPs dur­ing Sat­ur­day night's de­bate on the 2027 na­tion­al bud­get.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, Watts praised women on the Gov­ern­ment's side of the House, de­scrib­ing them as “good-look­ing” and say­ing they had “a lot of moral val­ues”.

“I feel very com­fort­able on this side, Mr Speak­er. Es­pe­cial­ly with the women, they have a lot of moral val­ues,” he said.

He lat­er added: “I've nev­er come across any of these ladies sleep­ing with the col­leagues. I've nev­er come across that on this side.”

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MP for Laven­tille West Ka­reem Mar­celle ob­ject­ed to the re­marks, ques­tion­ing their rel­e­vance to par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings.

“What is the rel­e­vance of talk­ing about per­sons' per­son­al ap­pear­ance in this House, Mr Speak­er?” Mar­celle asked.

The re­marks al­so drew crit­i­cism from the PNM's Na­tion­al Women's League and for­mer sen­a­tor Ani­ta Haynes Al­leyne.

The WPTT reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to en­cour­ag­ing women's par­tic­i­pa­tion in pol­i­tics and called on par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to ex­er­cise greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in their con­tri­bu­tions and re­frain from re­marks that fall be­neath the dig­ni­ty of Par­lia­ment.

It urged par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and the wider na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to “en­cour­age re­spect for Women, re­ject Sex­ism in Pol­i­tics and re­sist the ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion of women in Par­lia­ment”.