Activists in Trinidad and Tobago push to include women’s occupations on Hindu marriage act

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The government of Trinidad and Tobago is considering amending the local Hindu marriage act to include women’s occupations on certificates as demanded by activists.

Nearly 20% of the 1.4 million people who live on the diverse twin-island nation practice Hinduism, and 35% — making up the biggest ethnic group in Trinidad and Tobago — identify as East Indian, descendants of indentured workers brought from India during the colonial era.

Trinidad’s Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Legal Affairs said Friday that it filed a report proposing the amendment with the state’s law reform commission.

The commission also was ordered to examine the possibility of similar reforms in other sectors that the government didn’t identify “with a view to recommendations for greater national recognition of the rights of women,” the office said in a statement.

Kamla Tewarie, president of the local Hindu Women’s Organization, told the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian newspaper that they had been pushing for the change for several years.

“It is one of the unfortunate relics of colonialism that has not been addressed for a very long time,” she was quoted as saying. “Women are still being discriminated against in that their occupation or the education they have is not allowed to be put on their marriage certificate.”