New parenting policies on the way for States Members

Friday 14 July 2017

A group of States Members, including the Chief Minister Senator Ian Gorst and Deputy Louise Doublet, is to create a new 'Diversity Forum' to encourage equal representation in the island's government.

With just under a quarter of elected States members being female, and without any representation from Jersey's significant Portuguese or Polish communities, they believe the States Assembly is not representative of the island's community.

Currently, Deputies Anne Pryke and Sam Mézec are also members of the Forum.

One of the items on its agenda is to formalise official maternity and paternity policies for States Members.

The Privileges and Procedures Committee (PPC) has already started work on getting formal parental leave for States Members and Senator Gorst is confident that this policy will be in place "at least in time for the next election."

Deputy Doublet's own progression into politics was borne from her having a female role model. Commenting on the importance of this, she said: "I was inspired by somebody that I knew, which is why I know that getting this message out is really important.

"I had seen another woman like me, Deputy Vallois, doing this job as well as being a mother and being really effective at it. I could then look at myself and realise that I could do this job too. I had somebody who was that 'gatekeeper' for me, so that's why I feel I want to say to other people in Jersey: 'this job is for you'."

In terms of practical steps, Deputy Doublet and Senator Gorst are working with charity Caritas.

Deputy Doublet is keen to use her working relationship with the Jersey Community Relations Trust to host more events surrounding women in politics, as well as having liaised with the Chamber of Commerce to have more female parliamentarians to speak to, and hopefully inspire others to stand for election. 

The immediate priorities of the Forum in the next year are as follows:

• Encourage more women candidates to stand in the 2018 election.
• Make connections with Jersey's Portuguese, Polish and other minority communities to encourage greater participation in the 2018 election.
• Raise the profile of the work undertaken by States Members and the characteristics, skills and experiences which States Members bring to the role, in order to encourage a broader range of candidates to come forward for election.
• Produce and gain agreement to a policy on maternity, paternity, parental, adoption and caring leave for States Members
• Initiate an Inter-Parliamentary Union Gender Sensitive Parliament audit of the States Assembly, to identify future priorities for action.

Senator Gorst told Express: "We want to encourage representation right across our community. If we look at other legislatures and what is happening elsewhere - we are under-represented in terms of the number of women in our assembly, we are not represented at all by the immigrant communities."