Media Center

Press Release

PRESIDENT REPRESENTS INTER-AMERICAN WOMEN’S COMMISSION AT 2008 GLOBAL SUMMIT OF WOMEN IN HANOI

Dr. Jacqui Quinn-Leandro, President of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) and Antigua and Barbuda’s Minister of Labor, Public Administration & Empowerment was in Hanoi, Vietnam, participating in the 18th Global Summit of Women 2008, where a project she presented won a prestigious award for empowering young women through government, corporate and non-profit organizations combining their resources.

The President of CIM, a specialized agency of the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), presented her ministerial colleagues from around the world with a paper highlighting the initiatives and success of the Work and Life-skills Programme run by the Directorate of Gender Affairs in Antigua and Barbuda. The project won US$5,000.00 and a Global Summit Statue for the Directorate, after being selected by the Summit Ministers as qualifying for one of three awards.

A sixteen-week program geared towards training marginalized persons—particularly young women—the Work and Life Skills Programme was established in 1996, and prepares its trainees for the world of work. Over the years, this program has successfully placed participants in jobs in the private sector.

Vietnamese Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, inaugurated the June 5-7 Global Summit of Women, along with Summit President Irene Natividad. The conference brought together more than 900 women leaders from 70 countries, to exchange ideas and experiences on effective strategies forged by powerful women in government, business and non-governmental organizations.

The CIM President also fully endorsed a new initiative called the “Global Consortium of Women Leaders to End Cervical Cancer,” one of the main themes of this year’s Summit. Dr. Quinn-Leandro presented a statement on behalf of the women of the Americas, in which she underscored CIM’s commitment to the fight against cervical cancer. The CIM President noted that the Western Hemisphere has one of the world’s highest rates of death from cervical cancer, with the Caribbean and Central America subregions particularly affected. Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of death for women in South America.

“The real tragedy is that the majority of these deaths could have been prevented through a combination of routine screening to facilitate timely detection and appropriate diagnosis; treatment and follow up,” CIM President Quinn-Leandro told the Global Summit of Women.

Dr Quinn-Leandro went on to say that one of the persistent challenges and pressing concerns voiced by the women of the Americas is the high cost of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, which puts it out of the reach of many of the vulnerable women in the Americas due to a serious paucity of resources to counter the challenge of providing screening services and ensure adequate follow-up.

The CIM President concluded: “It is this compelling and sobering reality which impels us to implore this forum to advocate and agitate for increased and improved public/private partnerships for the distribution of cost-effective measures; especially in HPV vaccines; to eradicate this scourge and dramatically reduce female mortality and vulnerability. CIM is determined to stem the hemorrhage of women’s lives, so that no woman’s life is abbreviated and truncated by a preventable disease.”

Reference: E-232/08