The long-awaited Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill looks unlikely to hit the Parliament floor any time soon as it has been sent back to the Genders Affairs Unit for additional work.
Sustainability and Climate Resiliency Minister Katherine Ebanks-Wilks, responding to a parliamentary question on the bill from Newlands MP Wayne Panton on Wednesday, said the draft legislation had been returned to the unit.
“The bill was considered by caucus in April 2024 and the Gender Affairs Unit has been requested to explore additional options for reporting and adjudicating sexual harassment cases,” said Ebanks-Wilks, who has responsibility for gender affairs.
She said as soon as the ministry has completed the requested task, the bill will be returned to Cabinet for consideration.
In asking his question, Panton, who led the charge for the bill during his tenure as premier, noted that the legislation has undergone nearly a year of public consultation.
Ebanks-Wilks agreed that the bill has gone through multiple rounds of consultation and stakeholder review since Cabinet initially approved the issuance of the drafting instructions in 2022.
She said, following the public consultation in 2023, the draft Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill was completed and submitted to the Office of the Premier in October.
Following that, in January this year, the Gender Affairs Unit, which had been part of the premier’s portfolio, was moved to her ministry.
The bill, which has been in the works in various forms for nearly 20 years, was first proposed by the Business and Professional Women’s Club in 2005 after the group highlighted stalking and sexual harassment as major issues facing women in Cayman.
Panton promised to resurrect it in 2021, following a Cayman Compass project which demonstrated that sexual harassment is extremely common and chronically underreported in the Cayman Islands.
But despite two rounds of extensive consultations, Panton was unable to get the legislation through during his truncated tenure as leader.
Earlier this year, Panton questioned why the bill was not being progressed and labelled government’s inability to implement the new anti-sexual harassment law as an “epic failure”.
Ebanks-Wilks, who was parliamentary secretary when the bill was drafted, said that she was passionate about the legislation.
“I wanted to ensure that our young people felt that their voices were heard. As well as being a female, being a mother, having sisters, it’s certainly something that I would be very proud to get to the finish line as the minister responsible for gender affairs,” she said.
Panton said that he would share her pride when the bill gets presented and “we’re able to put this in place and reflect the interests of women in the country”.
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