Highlighting the excellent opportunity to strengthen the relationship between Caribbean nations and the United States toward the common goal of reinforcing military women empowerment, meaningful participation, decision making, protection from violence, and access to resources, Brigadier Godfrey Bess, chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) welcomed participants to the first Caribbean Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Conference, held in Georgetown, August 30-31, 2022.
“We are all here with a mission of increasing our individual effectiveness as we benefit from an understanding of WPS’ implementation, operational planning, and interoperability throughout the Caribbean,” Brig. Bess said in his opening remarks to more than 100 defense and security personnel from 13 Caribbean nations and the United States.
Brig. Bess took a moment during his speech to invited participants to reflect on the topic repeating his call for united work. “In this contemporary environment, the roles of women are far more impactful in the development of all societies… this we cannot deny. In the military, their roles are changing, gradually dimming that light which defines mission, by gender,” Brig. Bess said.
GDF in collaboration with the WPS Program of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and the Florida National Guard, as part of the State Partnership Program with Guyana, hosted the event.
U.S. Army General Laura J. Richardson,the first women to command SOUTHCOM, stressed to the attendees the importance of promoting the WPS agenda in their respective countries. “WPS is a core value because it makes our armed forces more ready, more resilient, more competitive, and more effective at keeping our citizens safe.”
“There are still challenges to achieving full gender equality. But if we keep making gender equality a priority in both military and civilian institutions, I have no doubt we’ll keep moving forward. When our nations open the talent pool to the other 50 percent of our population, we make our organizations more competitive, more efficient, and more successful,” Gen. Richardson added.
Under the theme Women in Leadership, Promoting Women, Peace, and Security, participants from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and the United States, addressed the topics of peace and security, strategies and policies for gender integration, recruitment, training and retention, gender discrimination, women in leadership, disaster relief operations, sexual harassment, human trafficking, and migration.
First Lady of Guyana Arya Ali, Rear Admiral Antonette Wemyss-Gorman, first female chief of Defense Staff of the Jamaica Defence Force, and U.S. Ambassador in Guyana Sarah-Ann Lynch, served as keynote speakers, among other female Guyanese dignitaries.
“Historically, while their contributions may have been largely unrecognized, women have always been critical in all security issues and across all sectors, playing key roles in conflict, as combatants and non-combatants, and creating the conditions for enduring peace, protection, and prevention of conflict,” said Amb. Lynch.
Several Guyanese government and nongovernmental organizations, Guyana’s Joint Services, and Judiciary system also took part in the two-day conference.
Opportunities and challenges
In the face of Caribbean gender integration in the security and defense forces, participants spoke about the need for their organization to execute structural modifications so all can gain from the investment in acknowledging women’s contribution in the security sector.
“We need to build a network and to connect with other countries as we work toward building strategies and competencies to integrate WPS in our organizations,” said Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Superintendent of Police Kamecia Blake-Byam. “It’s about creating bonds, common understanding, learning from best practices of other countries, building resilience policies, and getting recommendations from what we see around the region and how we can build our own local competencies.”
For Dominican Republic Lieutenant Colonel Pilot María Tejada Quintana, who set a milestone in her country’s aviation history after becoming the first female pilot to lead the Dominican Air Force Combat Squadron, her country has advanced on the integration of military women with the “Implementation Plan of Resolution 1325 of the United States Security Council [UNSC] for the armed forces of the Dominican Republic 2022-2025.”
“For Caribbean countries and especially for the Dominican Republic, the WPS program is very important as it seeks to integrate military women in conflict resolution, as well as in the process of building a more fair-minded society, contributing to the maintenance of peace and security by emphasizing the need to strengthen their training and provide them with the necessary tools for their participation in international and national scenarios through the implementation of UNSC Res. 1325,” Lt. Col. Quintana said.
The attendees vowed to continue their national efforts on gender integration as they concluded the event receiving certificates for their participation.
