Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar today supported the Women Reservation Bill which proposes to reserve 33 per cent seats in Parliament and state legislatures. “Of course, I support one-third reservation for women in legislature. Study shows that in legislatures wherever there are more women, corruption is less,” Persad-Bissessar said on the sidelines of an interactive session with FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) here.
On resistance to the bill, the Indian-origin Prime Minister said, “resistance does not mean that must stop us.” During her address to FLO members, he advocated for women empowerment and said it was linked to a country’s development. “Nations failing to empower women cannot identify the potential of development,” she said. Speaking on investment opportunity the country offered, Persad-Bissessar said though having a population of 1.3 million, Trinidad & Tobago offers opportunity as a gateway to access a market of over 200 million people in the region. Trinidad & Tobago was looking at Indian cooperation in areas like people centric projects, agri R&D, renewable energy, medicine, health, film, ICT. A T&T official said they are in talks with Ramoji Film city among others for a film city there. Some dialogues had been initiated with Gail for LNG import but there was no official confirmation.
