T&T faces calls for stronger human rights protections at UN review

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Trinidad and To­ba­go has come un­der re­newed in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny over hu­man traf­fick­ing, the death penal­ty, dis­crim­i­na­tion, the treat­ment of mi­grants and gaps in its leg­isla­tive frame­work, as coun­tries made a se­ries of rec­om­men­da­tions dur­ing the coun­try’s fourth Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view (UPR) in Gene­va yes­ter­day.

The re­view, con­duct­ed be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil’s Work­ing Group on the UPR, ex­am­ined the coun­try’s hu­man rights record and its im­ple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions from the pre­vi­ous re­view cy­cle.

Lead­ing the del­e­ga­tion, Chargée d’Af­faires at the Per­ma­nent Mis­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Chamyantie Lal, reaf­firmed the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to pro­tect­ing fun­da­men­tal rights, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that fur­ther work was nec­es­sary.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains firm­ly com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion and pro­tec­tion of all hu­man rights for per­sons with­in our ju­ris­dic­tion,” Lal told the Work­ing Group.

“We look for­ward to re­ceiv­ing the com­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions of this body, which will un­doubt­ed­ly as­sist us in fur­ther­ing our progress in this vi­tal area of hu­man rights pro­tec­tion.”

One of the key ar­eas ad­dressed was hu­man traf­fick­ing, with sev­er­al coun­tries urg­ing T&T to strength­en en­force­ment, im­prove vic­tim iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and en­sure ad­e­quate sup­port for those ex­ploit­ed.

Bangladesh specif­i­cal­ly rec­om­mend­ed that the coun­try strength­en en­force­ment of its an­ti-traf­fick­ing leg­is­la­tion by ad­e­quate­ly re­sourc­ing vic­tim pro­tec­tion ser­vices and build­ing ca­pac­i­ty to iden­ti­fy and sup­port vic­tims.

Mau­ri­tius al­so called for in­creased ef­forts to com­bat hu­man traf­fick­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly traf­fick­ing in­volv­ing women and chil­dren.

In re­sponse, T&T’s del­e­ga­tion said traf­fick­ing re­mained a high pri­or­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

The del­e­ga­tion point­ed to the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act of 2011, de­scrib­ing it as com­pre­hen­sive leg­is­la­tion that adopts a vic­tim-cen­tred ap­proach, with par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to women and chil­dren. It al­so high­light­ed the coun­try’s record of pros­e­cu­tions, stat­ing that 85 peo­ple ap­peared be­fore the courts for traf­fick­ing and re­lat­ed of­fences be­tween 2013 and 2024. The del­e­ga­tion ac­knowl­edged, how­ev­er, that the coun­try record­ed its first con­vic­tion for traf­fick­ing in 2023, fol­lowed by a sec­ond in 2025.

It al­so out­lined two re­cent op­er­a­tions un­der­tak­en by the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit. Op­er­a­tion Ice­berg, con­duct­ed in Ju­ly 2026, re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of three peo­ple sus­pect­ed of sex­u­al­ly ex­ploit­ing a mi­nor. Dur­ing Op­er­a­tion Res­olute Shield in Oc­to­ber, the unit screened 14 Venezue­lan na­tion­als and iden­ti­fied two mi­nor vic­tims of hu­man traf­fick­ing. The chil­dren were sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

The del­e­ga­tion stressed that any­one found guilty of of­fences un­der the Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials, would be sub­ject to pros­e­cu­tion and im­pris­on­ment.

The treat­ment and le­gal sta­tus of mi­grants and refugees al­so fea­tured promi­nent­ly in the dis­cus­sions.

T&T ac­knowl­edged that al­though it had ac­ced­ed to the 1951 Refugee Con­ven­tion and its 1967 Pro­to­col, their pro­vi­sions had not been in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion. It fur­ther dis­closed that the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy to Ad­dress Refugees and Asy­lum Seek­er Mat­ters, in­tro­duced in 2014, was no longer op­er­a­tional.

The Gov­ern­ment said it had in­tro­duced a new mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion frame­work this year, ex­tend­ing reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion be­yond Venezue­lan na­tion­als. As of Oc­to­ber 25, 20,240 it said ap­pli­cants had been rec­om­mend­ed for mi­grant reg­is­tra­tion cards and min­is­te­r­i­al per­mits fol­low­ing a vet­ting process.

Sev­er­al coun­tries, in­clud­ing Mex­i­co, Suri­name and Ukraine, called for stronger le­gal pro­tec­tions for mi­grants and refugees, in­clud­ing leg­is­la­tion con­sis­tent with in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions.

The death penal­ty was an­oth­er con­tentious is­sue, with coun­tries in­clud­ing Ice­land, Nor­way, Bel­gium and Switzer­land rec­om­mend­ing that T&T es­tab­lish a for­mal mora­to­ri­um on ex­e­cu­tions and take steps to­wards abo­li­tion. Oth­ers called for the re­moval of manda­to­ry death sen­tences.

The del­e­ga­tion main­tained that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment re­mained law­ful in T&T and out­lined the con­sti­tu­tion­al and le­gal con­sid­er­a­tions sur­round­ing its abo­li­tion.

The re­view al­so ex­posed con­tin­u­ing con­cerns about the rights of mem­bers of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty.

The Unit­ed King­dom urged T&T to amend the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act to pro­hib­it dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty. Ice­land, Spain and Nor­way al­so rec­om­mend­ed de­crim­i­nal­is­ing con­sen­su­al same-sex re­la­tions be­tween adults.

Gen­der-based vi­o­lence and the pro­tec­tion of women and chil­dren were al­so raised, with coun­tries wel­com­ing the Na­tion­al Strate­gic Ac­tion Plan on Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence and Sex­u­al Vi­o­lence 2023–2027, while call­ing for stronger im­ple­men­ta­tion, ad­e­quate re­sources, shel­ters and sur­vivor-cen­tred sup­port ser­vices.

Oth­er rec­om­men­da­tions in­clud­ed es­tab­lish­ing an in­de­pen­dent na­tion­al hu­man rights in­sti­tu­tion in ac­cor­dance with the Paris Prin­ci­ples, ex­pe­dit­ing the Dis­abil­i­ties Bill, strength­en­ing child pro­tec­tion and im­prov­ing ac­cess to jus­tice.

In­dia called for the es­tab­lish­ment of a na­tion­al hu­man rights in­sti­tu­tion with a broad man­date and ad­e­quate re­sources, while urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to ex­pe­dite the en­act­ment of the Dis­abil­i­ties Bill.

In her clos­ing re­marks, Lal said the rec­om­men­da­tions would be care­ful­ly con­sid­ered through the coun­try’s na­tion­al co­or­di­nat­ing mech­a­nism, in con­sul­ta­tion with rel­e­vant min­istries and stake­hold­ers. She ac­knowl­edged that im­ple­men­ta­tion could be chal­leng­ing, giv­en the coun­try’s size and re­sources.

“As a small is­land de­vel­op­ing state, ca­pac­i­ty and re­source con­straints re­main prac­ti­cal chal­lenges to im­ple­men­ta­tion,” Lal said.

She added that T&T wel­comed tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance and sup­port from in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to trans­late the rec­om­men­da­tions in­to prac­ti­cal and sus­tain­able progress.