By Permanent Delegation of Antigua and Barbuda to the OAS
USA / ANTIGUA – Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Sir Ronald Sanders, has welcomed the election yesterday, by acclamation, of the Antigua and Barbuda candidate for the Executive Committee of Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM).
Ambassador Sanders said that the election of Jamie Saunders of the Directorate of Gender Affairs in Antigua and Barbuda is a recognition of the pivotal role that Antigua and Barbuda has been playing on key issues at the Organization of American States (OAS).
He observed that, within 24 hours of Gender Affairs Minister, Dean Jonas, proposing Saunders as a candidate for the executive committee, he was elected on the strength of the campaigning efforts of Antigua and Barbuda’s Permanent Delegation to the OAS. Ambassador Sanders expressed his thanks to the OAS member states who supported Antigua and Barbuda’s candidate without a vote.
Established in 1928, the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) was the first inter-governmental agency established to ensure recognition of women’s human rights and is the only hemispheric political forum for women’s rights and gender equality.
Minister Dean Jonas said he was delighted at the success of Saunders’ election, “following the swift engagement by ambassador Sanders and his team in Washington, DC, Joy-Dee Davis and Gillian Joseph”.
The minister said that membership of the executive committee of the SIM “is a perfect fit with his ministry’s efforts to promote full and equal access, participation, representation, leadership and influence of women in the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural spheres”.
Minister Jonas added: “In collaboration with our embassy in Washington, our Gender Affairs Department and Jamie Saunders, will actively advance the interests of women in Antigua and Barbuda and the hemisphere”.
