EMPOWERMENT OF people through education, creation of meaningful employment opportunities, provision of information and access to resources, services and facilities, may help people make decisions that impact positively on Jamaican society.
This is the word from Gillan Lindsay-Nanton, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme & Co-ordinator of U.N. Systems in Jamaica.
Ms. Lindsay-Nanton was speaking on Tuesday morning at the launch of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) "State of World Population Report 2002" at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.
Quoting from the report, Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said she was particularly struck by the statement that "given a real choice, poor people would choose to have smaller families than their parents did".
She said that in the sections of the report looking at "Family size, norms and missed opportunities", it is argued that larger families are increasingly being seen as an economic burden on poor households and that "with better information on family planning methods, better access to health services and better understanding of their alternatives, more poor people would choose a smaller family".
One of the key questions being posed in the Report Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said was, "What decisions would the poor make if they had information and real options to choose from and how would these decisions impact on the development of the society, on fertility rates on HIV/AIDS, on domestic violence, illiteracy and crime".
Empowerment, education, employment and participation in decision-making, Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said, may result in fewer mothers choosing not to send their children to school, fewer persons choosing to engage in high-risk sexual behaviour and fewer children choosing to initiate sexual activity at an early age. In addition, she suggested "more women would choose to leave abusive relationships, fewer young people would choose to turn to drugs and fewer would choose a life of crime and violence".
In the UNFPA Report, Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said, "Jamaican women spoke about the freedoms that having an income brings "from being able to choose family planning methods, to deciding on whether to remain in abusive relationships".
While noting that no one can presume to know what choices people will make if they have greater freedom to choose, Ms. Lindsay-Nanton said, "The UN agencies believe that, in aggregate terms, we stand a much greater chance of securing more stable, prosperous and peaceful societies by providing people with the freedom to make choices as well as options to choose from".
