Message from the Opposition on International Day of the Family

Today, 15th May, the PNCR and the Parliamentary Opposition join with the rest of the world to mark the UN International Day of Families. The Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 1993 to reflect the importance the international community attaches to families. Guyana and other nations are called upon to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to address the livelihood and other social, economic challenges families face.

For the Guyana context, we in the PNCR and the Coalition have chosen the theme FOCUSING HOLISTICALLY ON FAMILIES IN LIFTING LIVING STANDARDS. We have chosen this theme to emphasize the necessity of embracing a holistic family approach in national socio-economic planning and conversation. Presently, the national agenda emphasizes individuals or groups over families. As such, issues such as high poverty levels, high cost of living, high unemployment, high infant and maternal mortality, poor health care, and juvenile delinquency are only infrequently or inadequately evaluated in terms of how they affect entire family units or households.

We must correct this approach. We are therefore using today’s observance to advocate for Guyana to move towards the conceptualizing, designing, and implementing of a NATIONAL FAMILY POLICY.

What should a national family policy for Guyana entail? To answer, we quote from the social science literature as follows: “family policies encompass the four explicit functions of families: (a) family creation (e.g., to marry or divorce, to bear or adopt children); (b) economic support (e.g., to provide financially for members‘ basic needs); (c) child rearing (e.g., to socialise the next generation); and (d) caregiving (e.g., to provide assistance for the disabled, frail, ill, and elderly). Policies that are included under the family policy umbrella include adoption, childcare tax credit, family leave, long-term care, school finance, welfare reform, and so forth.”

In Guyana, the PNCR and the Coalition are committed to treat these issues in a comprehensive and holistic manner, recognizing their importance to family members, family structures, family stability and prosperity, and to the development of the wider society and economy. As a component of family policy, our Early Childhood Care and Education policy (proposed in November 2022), for example, spoke about such benefits as (i) stronger and happier mothers and families, and a more caring and stable society; (ii) greater social justice through gender parity or equity, (iii) better socially-adjusted children—who are less likely to engage in deviant and criminal behaviors as they age, and (iv) expansion in GDP through greater female participation in the workforce and higher productivity from female workers.

We fully recognize that numerous other government policies and decisions, though not targeted at families, still affect the family to large extents. How we treat our vendors (most of whom are single mothers), how we incarcerate our menfolk, and how flexible our employment practices are examples that come readily to mind.

On this International Day of Families, therefore, we call on the Guyanese people to re-affirm that the family constitutes the basic unit of society and therefore warrants special attention and comprehensive protection and support.