Caricom to examine issues affecting Rastafarians

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) will con­vene a meet­ing of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from mem­ber states and oth­er key stake­hold­ers to ex­am­ine is­sues af­fect­ing Rasta­far­i­ans across the re­gion.

Ac­cord­ing to CARI­COM, the meet­ing fol­lows con­cerns about the per­sis­tent dis­crim­i­na­tion and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion ex­pe­ri­enced by Rasta­far­i­ans both re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

The de­ci­sion was tak­en dur­ing the 42nd In­ter-Ses­sion­al Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment on 8 May 2026.

Mem­ber states recog­nised that many Rasta­far­i­ans con­tin­ue to face ex­clu­sion in ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment and pub­lic life. They al­so reaf­firmed the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing the rights of Rasta­far­i­ans and en­sur­ing they re­ceive equal treat­ment in so­ci­ety.

Heads of Gov­ern­ment al­so agreed to es­tab­lish a com­mit­tee com­pris­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica, St Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and To­ba­go to ad­vance dis­cus­sions on is­sues af­fect­ing Rasta­far­i­ans at the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els.

CARI­COM said mem­ber states al­so point­ed to sev­er­al na­tion­al ini­tia­tives aimed at ad­dress­ing his­tor­i­cal in­jus­tices ex­pe­ri­enced by Rasta­far­i­ans, in­clud­ing of­fi­cial pub­lic apolo­gies, land grants and leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect peo­ple from work­place dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said these ini­tia­tives could help in­form a co­or­di­nat­ed re­gion­al ap­proach to ad­dress­ing is­sues af­fect­ing Rasta­far­i­an