Born on 14 April 1959, Backer received her LLB degree from University of the West Indies, Barbados in 1981 and attended the Hugh Wooding Law School for her legal education certificate.
[1][2] Backer started her career as a lawyer and was a member of the Guyana Bar Association.
[3] After joining the People's National Congress (PNC) in 1994, she served on the Georgetown city council till 1998.
[4] For the 2011 general elections, PNC together with other parties formed an alliance A Partnership for National Unity and became the opposition in the next assembly.
Backer was their shadow foreign affairs minister and also headed the Parliamentary Sectorial Committees.