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Human Rights in Trinidad and Tobago Copyright
©2002 Adam Alkins In my essay, I intend to give you an overview of the Human Rights situation in Trinidad and Tobago. By law, we are given a fair amount of human rights, but, are they practiced? The Constitution The Trinidad and Tobago constitution provides all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago with basic human rights. Chapter one of the Constitution is titled "The Recognition and Protection of Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms." It clearly provides for us basic rights for our existence. Discrimination Part I, Section 4 states "It is herby recognised and declared that in Trinidad and Tobago there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, origin, colour, religion or sex". Therefore, in the constitution, we are protected against discrimination. However, there have been numerous reports in the country about discrimination in the workplace and also at nightclubs. Are we really protected? The Equal Opportunities act of 2000 was passed in parliament to protect us. Its aim was to make discrimination "illegal on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, religion, marital status, or disability. " Homosexual Rights However, there is little legislation to protect homosexuals and transsexuals. It goes as far to make same sex actions completely illegal, under the Sexual Offences Act. To further compound the hypocrisy, according to the International Lesbian and Gay Rights Association, it states "Under Article 8 (18/1) of the Immigration Act, homosexual men and women are not allowed to enter the country." If we really have human rights in Trinidad and Tobago, shouldn't we be allowed the freedom of sexual preference? Apparently not, and this is one of the biggest problems facing the Caribbean. In an ever growing world Gay rights movement, the Caribbean has been very backward to adopt measures implemented by their Neighbours, note-ably the United States. Recently in Jamaica, it was considered making Homosexual acts partially legal, but a stringent outcry by the public and especially the Catholic Church cut it short. The fact is the Caribbean on the whole is very homophobic. Education Section 4 continues to proclaim our rights
of "a parent or guardian to provide a school of his
own choice for the education of his child or ward"
- Part f. The law provides this, but note, only Primary
school is compulsory. For secondary school level, there
is placement, and a child, although having listed choices,
is placed according to how they perform in an exam. Therefore,
that clause is somewhat limiting, because of the limited
school resources available. Our freedom of movement, association and assembly are covered in Part g and j of Section 4. We are allowed, once permitted by the Police, to assemble for peaceful protest marches (Summary Offences Act). There have been a few cases where police have denied this. Most recently, for the opening of Parliament on Friday 4th, no one will be allowed to gather anywhere in Port of Spain during 6:00am and 6:00pm, reasons being National Security. In my belief, this is legitimate and doing so will help prevent any chance of violence. Our right here is intact. The Press In Section 4, we are also allowed freedom of the press (Part k) and also, related, freedom of thought and expression (Part I). The majority of the newspapers are very critical of the Government and very often over exaggerate many stories. But, Former Prime Minister/Leader of the Opposition (Perhaps) Basdeo Panday has been extremely critical of the newspapers. In 1997, he publicly called Ken Gordon, CEO of CCN (TV6 and the Express) a Psuedo Racist. He was sued successfully and the appeal is in progress. However this hasn't stopped Panday. During the campaign trail for the December 2001 elections, he call TV6 "satanic" at a public meeting. However, besides Panday, there has been little to block the press. We as individuals are free to send editorials to the newspapers and they are usually published. Political Choice Freedom to choose a political party is covered in Part h of Section 4. We can attend any political meeting without duress, join a party and vote. However, there have been a number of discrepancies. There have been numerous allegations of Voting fraud in the Elections in both 2000 and 2001 by the PNM. It should be noted however, that both the Commonwealth Observer Team for the 2000 Elections and the Caricom Observer Team for the 2001 Elections declared them "Free and Fair". Despite that, a Commission of Inquiry is going on into the EBC (Elections and Boundaries Commission). If these allegations are proven to be true, this could greatly discredit our right. It is quite worrying seeing this, and we can only hope that the elections were really free and fair despite these irregularities. Life As states earlier, we have the right to Life. However, you should know that Trinidad and Tobago has Capital Punishment in place. The death penalty, by hanging, can be imposed for serious crimes, mostly first degree murder. However, we are given the right to a fair trial. All murder accused must be represented by a lawyer, if he/she cannot afford one, they will be appointed one by the court. But there are a few problems here. There is an appeals process in place. The highest appeal allowed is the Privy Council, in England. England, and most of Europe, has abolished Capital punishment, unlike the Caribbean. Therefore, the Privy Council tends to try to commit death sentences to Life in prison. Th Privy Council imposed a 5 year limit on Death Row inmates, meaning, any prisoner left on death row for more than 5 years would have their sentence committed to life in prison instead. To combat this, there have been different initiatives to speed up the process. There are two other bodies which Trinidad and Tobago were part of which convicted murderers could appeal to, the Inter-American Human Rights Committee (IAHRC) and the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). In 1998, the Government withdrew from the IAHRC and also from the UNHRC, however, rejoined the UNHRC after an agreement where they would not interfere with death penalty cases. After the withdrawal from the IAHRC, a letter from the Human Rights Watch group sent a letter to then Prime Minister Panday. In the letter it said "Your decision denies the Trinidadian and Tobagonian citizenry the broad range of human rights protections that are enshrined in the Convention and actively promoted through the work of the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights". It even went further to say "We urge you to do all in your power to stem movement in the Caribbean to undermine support for international human rights standards." The second quote was said because many of the other Caribbean Islands, mostly Jamaica and Barbados, followed in T&T's footsteps by withdrawing from these international bodies. This whole scenario makes you doubt the actual rights we possess if convicted to death, especially now when the outlook for the Caribbean Court of Justice to replace the Privy Council as the last appeal avenue is looking more and more realistic. Women's Rights Although my personal belief is that Women should be treated equally, there are many laws which protect women specifically. The Sexual Offences Act protects women from Rape and Assault. It also protects men too, however, there are serious problems in societies perception to male rapes. The Police have been known to be very unsympathetic to cases where men have been raped. But it's a fact that many men are raped, yet many are caused to hide it. Although all rape numbers are low because of low report rate, the men's rape figure is greatly understated. Security in case of divorce or separation in a common law situation for women is now protected in the Domestic Violence Act, which covers the abuse also, as the name suggests. The Community Police has been set up specifically to deal with Domestic cases however, there still needs to be a lot of work done to have an efficient system. The are many NGOs (Non Governmental Organisations) which help deal with domestic abuse and cases rape in the above paragraph by offering counselling and running shelters. Disabled People There are currently no laws catering for disabled people's access to public building, e.t.c. According to the United States State Department human rights report 2001 "The lack of access to transportation, buildings, and sidewalks is a major obstacle for persons with disabilities. The Government provides some public assistance and partial funding to a variety of NGO's, which in turn provide direct services to disabled members or clients." As you can see, this is a very big problem and legislation should be put in place to cater for the disabled person's needs. Worker's Rights Various pieces of legislation protect our rights in the workplace. There are many open Trade Unions, covered in the Industrial Relations Act. These Trade Unions fight for Worker's rights and practice collective bargaining with companies. However, in case of unfair treatment, there are avenues which can be accessed. The Industrial Court offers workers a platform to sue companies over different matters regarding retrenchment, antiunion practices, e.t.c. In a recent case, three engineers of BWIA won a case because they were unfairly suspended in the sum of around $100,000. Conclusion In this essay I have broke human rights into different categories and analysed each one. I think we, as citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, enjoy a good amount of human rights. There are areas which could be improved on however and I hope the governments of the future would look at the problematic issues much more carefully. Thank you for reading. These can also be used for Reference reading since only snips of information was used for the essay. 1. Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago (Book)
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