The Royal St Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force (RSVPF) has recruited 100 young persons, predominantly male, to train to become police officers.
These recruits were hired recently following the government’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.
Speaking on his Face-to-Face programme on Wednesday, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said 14 officers chose to abandon their jobs and therefore resigned and there were 32 in the year 2021 who took early retirement or resigned.
“I suppose some of them did this because they decided they were not going to take the vaccine,” said Dr Gonsalves.
But even as the RSVPF takes in new recruits the prime minister said there is a limit to the number of young women who could be recruited due to a lack of physical facilities to accommodate more women at the training school.
Another challenge in taking in a larger number of women, according to Dr Gonsalves, is that some older police stations lack good accommodation for women. He said in newer police stations or those rehabilitated, there are separate quarters for women.
The Prime Minister added: “One of the challenges in the Police Force, the leadership advises me, is that at the interviews women will say yes they can work the hours as men but very often when they actually get in the office they can’t work until a certain time because they have child, and no one to take care of the child.”
Dr Gonsalves said there are competing motherhood issues in addition to other issues as well.
Source :Loop Caribbean