Grenada Spotlight Legal Reform Agenda Targets Sexual Harassment  

“Sexual harassment is a serious issue. It can blight lives. It needs action. People  need to feel safe wherever they are and that they have the protection of the law from sexual predators”

Making sexual harassment unlawful must be an immediate priority as part of sweeping  legal reforms currently taking place in the country, according to the Grenada Spotlight Initiative.

At the moment, no sexual harassment law has been passed in Grenada, but there are  significant developments in the pipeline and Spotlight is helping to spearhead change.  For example, a national Bill (The IMPACT Justice Sexual Harassment Legislation  Committee) is before the Government for consideration. This resonates with Model  CARICOM legislation on sexual harassment.

Under Grenada Spotlight, the legal team of drafters and stakeholders are considering  recommendations to:

(i) Review the Draft Model Sexual Harassment Bill and have a bill tabled. (ii) Specifically prohibit sexual harassment at the workplace, schools and  educational settings and provide adequate complaint mechanisms and  protections from reprisals

(iii) Criminally prohibit non-employment-related sexual harassment.

These activities follow earlier work including Grenada National Organization of  Women (GNOW) submitting its commissioned draft Sexual Harassment Bill  commissioned for government review. This GNOW draft defined sexual harassment

as: “the unwanted or unwelcome physical, verbal and non-verbal conduct of a sexual nature or based on sex, which is offensive to the person being harassed.”

Elsewhere in the region, the Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Saint Lucia and Trinidad and  Tobago have all taken steps to make sexual harassment a criminal offence. Now,  according to Spotlight, it’s Grenada’s turn.

Further notes on Spotlight Initiative 

The European Union partnering with the United Nations launched the Spotlight Initiative to  secure political commitments and catalyze global actions aimed at eliminating violence against  women worldwide. The initiative currently operates in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin  America and the Pacific, providing funding, capacity and connection building, programmatic  support and other forms of assistance towards its purpose of eliminating VAWG.

The Grenada Spotlight Initiative “is designed to focus attention, coordinate human effort, and  strategically apply resources to the implementation of a well-conceived comprehensive national  programme to contribute to end family violence and all forms of violence against women and in  Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique”. The initiative is organised around six pillars of  programming, namely: (1) ‘Legislative and Policy Frameworks’, (2) ‘Strengthening Institutions’,  (3) Prevention and Social Norms, (4) ‘Delivery of High Quality, Essential Services (5) Data  Availability and Capacities’, and (6), ‘Supporting Women’s Movements’.

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