Senator calls on Govt to enact disability legislation

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

With the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion re­port­ing a rise in the glob­al dis­abil­i­ty pop­u­la­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ali­cia Lalite-Eti­enne is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to en­act long-await­ed leg­is­la­tion that gives re­al pro­tec­tion and eq­ui­ty to peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties.

Lalite-Eti­enne, who is vi­su­al­ly im­paired, brought a pri­vate mem­bers’ mo­tion to the Up­per House yes­ter­day, call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ta­ble a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al strate­gic plan with a leg­isla­tive frame­work with­in 12 months.

Al­though T&T is a sig­na­to­ry to sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al treaties, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (CR­PD), she said these com­mit­ments re­main on­ly pol­i­cy with­out do­mes­tic law to en­force them.

“Sec­tion 4 of the Con­sti­tu­tion speaks about equal­i­ty and rights of all cit­i­zens. With­out do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion, we are in vi­o­la­tion of part of the Con­sti­tu­tion. The CR­PD 2006 has eight prin­ci­ples, and I am ab­solute­ly sure that we are in breach of some of those prin­ci­ples be­cause there is no do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion,” Lalite-Eti­enne said.

She said peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties (PWD) still faced en­trenched in­sti­tu­tion­al, at­ti­tu­di­nal and struc­tur­al bar­ri­ers that leg­is­la­tion could help dis­man­tle. These bar­ri­ers af­fect ac­cess to work, health­care, safe­ty, fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence and ba­sic in­clu­sion.

“We do not just de­serve a na­tion­al pol­i­cy. We have a right like any oth­er per­son with­in this na­tion of Trinidad & To­ba­go. I view this na­tion­al pol­i­cy like a dog with no teeth. It will rush you, but it can­not bite,” she said, adding that dis­crim­i­na­tion thrives when there is no en­force­able pro­tec­tion.

A 2011 Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice cen­sus iden­ti­fied 52,244 peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, but Lalite-Eti­enne said the num­ber has risen sig­nif­i­cant­ly due to age­ing, non­com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, the pan­dem­ic and con­flict-dri­ven in­juries. She said peo­ple of­ten ex­pe­ri­ence a sud­den loss of in­de­pen­dence and re­quire sup­port de­vices or mod­i­fied work­spaces, yet still find sys­tems that ex­clude them.

While a Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties and the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act ex­ist, she said, they do not ad­e­quate­ly cov­er the full range of needs and con­cerns. In 2024, then Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Don­na Cox con­firmed that a new bill was be­ing draft­ed to align with the CR­PD. By March, Cox re­port­ed that the Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties Bill was ready, pend­ing fi­nal pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive analy­sis af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with civ­il so­ci­ety, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion and peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties.

Re­spond­ing to the mo­tion, Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Van­dana Mo­hit said the im­pli­ca­tion that the Gov­ern­ment was not act­ing “de­ci­sive­ly and com­pre­hen­sive­ly” was in­cor­rect. She said sig­nif­i­cant work had al­ready been com­plet­ed.

“Leg­isla­tive ad­vance­ment is well on the way. Mr Pres­i­dent, the mo­tion which calls for a leg­isla­tive frame­work in 12 months de­mands time, but I want to share here to­day that the Gov­ern­ment al­ready has a ro­bust leg­isla­tive agen­da in ad­vanced stages,” Mo­hit said.

She said the draft PWD Bill has been vet­ted by the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion, eval­u­at­ed by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion and is now be­fore the leg­isla­tive re­view com­mit­tee. She main­tained that the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted not on­ly to sign­ing con­ven­tions but al­so to op­er­a­tional­is­ing them through pol­i­cy, in­sti­tu­tions and na­tion­al pro­grammes.

Mo­hit said gov­ern­ment sup­port was ev­i­dent in dis­abil­i­ty as­sis­tance grants. Dur­ing fis­cal 2025, 21,298 adults re­ceived $542 mil­lion in dis­abil­i­ty sup­port, while 4,352 chil­dren re­ceived $80 mil­lion. For fis­cal 2026, $640 mil­lion has been al­lo­cat­ed in ad­di­tion to oth­er grants and a pend­ing pros­thet­ic camp. She al­so an­nounced that the Na­tion­al Ther­a­peu­tic and Re­source Cen­tre for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties in Carlsen Field will be­gin ser­vice on De­cem­ber 1.

Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness in the Sen­ate, Dr Amery Browne, said his bench ful­ly sup­port­ed the mo­tion and not­ed that draft leg­is­la­tion pre­pared un­der for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi was al­ready avail­able to the Gov­ern­ment. He said the de­bate should be treat­ed as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for bi­par­ti­san co­op­er­a­tion, not po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion­ing.

He ques­tioned why there would be hes­i­ta­tion to pre­pare and ta­ble a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al strate­gic plan when it could on­ly help vul­ner­a­ble groups. Browne em­pha­sised that dis­abil­i­ty pre­ven­tion must form part of the equa­tion, not­ing that ris­ing di­a­betes rates lead to am­pu­ta­tions, vi­su­al im­pair­ment and or­gan fail­ure. He added that an age­ing pop­u­la­tion al­so in­creas­es sen­so­ry im­pair­ment and height­ens the need for ac­ces­si­ble ser­vices.

Browne high­light­ed every­day dis­crim­i­na­tion faced by peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, from taxis re­fus­ing to stop to abuse in in­sti­tu­tions and homes. He not­ed that some re­quire sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health­care and are de­nied it due to mis­con­cep­tions about dis­abil­i­ty.

He said it was trou­bling that new busi­ness­es con­tin­ue to open with­out prop­er ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, show­ing how far the coun­try still has to go.