From Caribbean National Weekly

Four South Florida Caribbean-American women, Hazel Martin of Jamaica, Myrna Lloyd of Barbados, and Sherna and Maxine Barnes of Antigua and Barbuda will be heading out Thursday afternoon for Washington DC. The ladies are not flying out to the nation’s capital to attend the inauguration of America’s 45^th President, but to join thousands of women from across America in what has been dubbed, “The Women March on Washington,” on Saturday January 21.

The idea for the march, first planned for Inauguration Day, January 20, originated on Facebook on November 9, the day after the presidential elections which Donald Trump surprisingly won over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Lloyd said when she first saw the call for the march she thought it was “a waste of time,” because Trump had won, so what would marching on Inauguration Day accomplish?” However, she said the idea quickly gained traction and positive response from a growing number of women, and men, and “morphed” from a march against Trump’s election to one supporting a variety of issues that affects women directly and indirectly.

Lloyd said her purpose of going to march on Washington is to strive for family, or extended maternity, leave for women. A mother of three children born in Miami, she said on the three occasion she gave birth she had to return to work within six weeks “or risk losing my job.” She said, “This is wrong. Women need to have longer paid maternity leave for their own health, and in order to spend more time with their babies.”

Martin and the Barnes also support a better family leave policy too, but fear the government could adapt tighter policies on abortion rights, and could “even try to close women clinics nationally as they try to dismantle Planned Parenthood.”

“There are several major issues that affect millions of women across the country. It is important that as the Trump administration begin it is made emphatically aware of these issues, and make plans to address them effectively,” Martin said.

The South Florida women had originally planned to take one of several buses heading from South Florida to DC on Thursday and Friday, but, Lloyd the coordinator of the trip for the four said, “The seats on these buses were sold out almost as soon as they went on sale.”

Lloyd said she understand over 5,000 women from South Florida and 20,000 from across the state will be attending the March, which up to Wednesday morning had attracted some 240.000 women according to reports.

The march is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday near the National Museum of the American Indian, close to the US Capitol, and according to Martin, should be for a distance of just over one mile.  The march will end with a rally featuring several women advocates and speakers, and a range of entertainers

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