An Ongoing Journey in the Pursuit of Agency: The Hindu Women’s Organisation of Trinidad andTobago

Abstract

Where women are honoured, There the Gods are pleased: But where they are not honoured, No sacred rite yields rewards ”So declares the Manu Smriti(111.56) —a text on social conduct. In reviewing the attempts of the Hindu Women’s Organisation (HWO) of Trinidad and Tobago to address the issue of domestic violence, this paper will briefly consider the power relations within the Indian household. It will define what is meant by “regendering the state”—a term introduced by Mindie Lazarus Black in her research paper “The (Heterosexual) Regendering of a Modern State: Criminalizing and Implementing Domestic Violence Law in Trinidad” (2003, 980-1008).It will also reflect on the role of the local women’s movement in advocating for the introduction of the Domestic Violence Bill of 1991 in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago