The conversation with Our Circle and the Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB) continued this week. For the first time ever, a commitment has been made by the SIB to analyze same-sex families information.
Tisa Grant, UNFPA’s representative on the National Census Advisory Committee informed the team, in relation to our Census 2020 submission, that "the SIB had advised that to capture gender diversity in the census questionnaire would require more research and testing of questions prior to implementation. Unfortunately, there will not be enough time to accomplish this before training starts in February of next year."
Following the email response, Our Circle's Managing Director, arranged a meeting with the SIB's, Miriam Willoughby, Manager, Census Surveys and Administrative Statistics Department surrounding the process surrounding the 2020 Census Instrument. Admittedly, the Census 2020 development process was not as clear cut as our team thought.
Ms Miriam Willoughby made mention to us that the Census Instrument is a regional instrument that is developed and disseminated regionally, through the United Nations Statistical Commission which meets once a year in New York, every March to be specific. This instrument is then given to the regional team to be tweaked to suit the countries utilizing the instruments.
Surely one would think that the expansion of sex options and inclusion of gender identity would be an easy and simple fix; however, as with most regional decisions, a case would need to be built and submitted to the regional committee, accompanied with the proposed design of the question and a training note as to how the question should be asked and answered. Ok so......the process takes a while and because of our ignorance none of the LGBT organizations were aware of this process or could have countered the actions leading up to Census 2020.
HOWEVER, the next large survey to be conducted will be the Labour Force Survey in April 2020 and September 2020. Now, in order for us to be able to ask for an LGBT specific module to be considered and subsequently included, a submission should be made 6 months in advance or if we want to do our own LGBT survey our submission must be made a year in advance.
Why did I say all this? For the first time ever, the decennial survey is designed to allow analysis of persons who live together as a of a same-sex couple.
“The dynamics surrounding families in Belize keeps changing,” Ms Willoughby told Derricia. “To better collect more detailed data about types of coupled households, the SIB expanded the response option of ‘husband or wife’ to "spouse/partner".
STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
The expansion of the relationship question is a step in the right direction, but nowhere near what we’d love to have one day. The Census will not explicitly capture participants' gender or sexual orientation, but it will be able to capture the amount of same-sex couples living together and provide national data to support the demographics of same-sex families in Belize.
In the Census 2020 survey, the researchers will count same-sex couples by cross-referencing answers from the relationship question with the respondent’s gender. There is still much more room for improvement on the instruments being used nationally because in Census 2020, while we will be able to count same-sex couples living together, same-sex couples who are not cohabiting would not be counted. Neither would a bisexual person who lives with an opposite-sex partner or a transgender person who lives alone.
LOOKING AHEAD
Our Circle's short term goal is to ensure that LGBT persons and their families get counted. While we still haven't achieved the in goal we are working towards; given the importance of the census as a tool for allocating government funds we urge the importance of trying to get as many LGBT people to participate in the Census 2020 as possible.
Our Circle and the other groups that advocate on behalf of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community will continue to push for the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity questions on SIB surveys, including the Labour Force Survey, conducted bi-annually.
The Census 2020 is expected to run from April to July 2020. By December 2020 Census data will be available to the public as well as the National Demographic Baseline Information for same sex couples in Belize.