The Tribune

LORETTA Butler Turner, the Shadow Minister of Labour and Social Development, will be joining women from Mexico, Central and South America participating in a meeting on the prevention of violence against females in Washington, DC, this week.

Under the auspices of the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) will hold a one-day meeting at the OAS headquarters tomorrow. The meeting is being held in the context of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of violence against women known as the Belém do Pará Convention, of which The Bahamas is a signatory, having ratified the Convention in 1995.

Mrs Butler Turner has been invited to participate in a private Experts’ Meeting and a public forum to discuss the “Role of Political Parties in addressing Violence against Women” as a “Follow-up Mechanism of the Belém do Pará Convention”.

“The overall aim is to analyse the challenges faced by the Latin American and Caribbean countries to effectively respond to ... violence with the objective of protecting women’s political rights,” the CIM says, adding that the Experts’ Meeting will analyse “the challenges faced by the countries of the region in order to properly respond to the problem of violence against women in politics through the law”.