T&T human rights record to face fourth UN review

Trinidad and To­ba­go's hu­man rights record will come un­der ex­am­i­na­tion by the Unit­ed Na­tions on Mon­day, with the Gov­ern­ment's lat­est sub­mis­sion ac­knowl­edg­ing gaps in the coun­try's pro­tec­tion of refugees and asy­lum seek­ers, along­side con­cerns about hu­man traf­fick­ing, vi­o­lence against women and chil­dren, and dis­crim­i­na­tion.

The re­view, con­duct­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil's Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view (UPR) Work­ing Group, will take place in Gene­va from 9 am to 12.30 pm (4 am to 7.30 am T&T time).

It will be Trinidad and To­ba­go's fourth re­view un­der the UPR process, fol­low­ing pre­vi­ous ex­am­i­na­tions in Oc­to­ber 2011, May 2016 and No­vem­ber 2021.

Ahead of Mon­day's ex­am­i­na­tion, the Gov­ern­ment sub­mit­ted a na­tion­al re­port out­lin­ing de­vel­op­ments and mea­sures tak­en since the pre­vi­ous re­view. The doc­u­ment, iden­ti­fied as A/HRC/WG.6/53/TTO/1, is one of three sources that will in­form the as­sess­ment.

The oth­er two are in­for­ma­tion com­piled from UN hu­man rights ex­perts, treaty bod­ies and oth­er UN en­ti­ties, and sub­mis­sions from na­tion­al hu­man rights in­sti­tu­tions, re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and civ­il so­ci­ety groups.

On refugees and asy­lum seek­ers, the Gov­ern­ment ac­knowl­edged that al­though Trinidad and To­ba­go ac­ced­ed to the 1951 Refugee Con­ven­tion and its 1967 Pro­to­col, their pro­vi­sions have not been in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to do­mes­tic leg­is­la­tion, di­rec­tives or pol­i­cy frame­works.

The re­port al­so not­ed that the Na­tion­al Pol­i­cy to Ad­dress Refugee and Asy­lum Seek­er Mat­ters, in­tro­duced in 2014, is no longer op­er­a­tional. In its ab­sence, the Im­mi­gra­tion Act gov­erns mat­ters re­lat­ing to le­gal and il­le­gal en­try in­to the coun­try.

The Gov­ern­ment point­ed to a new Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion Frame­work in­tro­duced in 2026 through Le­gal No­tice No. 41, which ex­pand­ed mi­grant reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion be­yond Venezue­lan na­tion­als.

Un­der the frame­work, mi­grants aged 16 and over whose im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus is ir­reg­u­lar be­cause of ex­pired en­try cer­tifi­cates or fail­ure to re­port to an Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer af­ter en­ter­ing through an il­le­gal point of en­try are re­quired to reg­is­ter.

Ap­proved ap­pli­cants are grant­ed a Min­is­ter's Per­mit al­low­ing them to re­main and work in Trinidad and To­ba­go for up to one year, valid un­til De­cem­ber 31, 2026. Chil­dren of ap­proved mi­grants are al­so el­i­gi­ble for Stu­dent Per­mit Ex­emp­tions, al­low­ing them to re­main in the coun­try and en­ter the school sys­tem.

The re­port said peo­ple found in breach of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act may face de­por­ta­tion pro­ceed­ings, re­gard­less of na­tion­al­i­ty. Those who en­ter il­le­gal­ly are screened by an Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer to de­ter­mine whether de­por­ta­tion should be con­sid­ered.

Where a de­tained per­son may be a vic­tim of traf­fick­ing, the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion en­gages the Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit to as­sist with their safe­ty. Or­ders of Su­per­vi­sion are al­so used in ap­pro­pri­ate cas­es as al­ter­na­tives to de­ten­tion while a per­son's im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus is be­ing de­ter­mined.

On con­di­tions at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­ten­tion Cen­tre, the Gov­ern­ment said de­tainees re­ceive three meals dai­ly and med­ical care, with Emer­gency Med­ical Tech­ni­cians pro­vid­ing a 24-hour ser­vice and a doc­tor vis­it­ing once a week.

De­tainees are en­ti­tled to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their choos­ing and the right to com­mu­ni­cate with their at­tor­neys. The re­port iden­ti­fied Liv­ing Wa­ters Com­mu­ni­ty and the Caribbean Net­work for Hu­man Rights as or­gan­i­sa­tions that as­sist de­tainees through le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion and re­fer­ral arrange­ments.

On the prin­ci­ple of non-re­foule­ment, which pro­hibits re­turn­ing peo­ple to coun­tries where they could face per­se­cu­tion or se­ri­ous hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, the Gov­ern­ment said it does not sup­port de­port­ing any­one who may face per­se­cu­tion, tor­ture, ill-treat­ment or oth­er se­ri­ous hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions.

Hu­man traf­fick­ing is an­oth­er area ad­dressed in the sub­mis­sion. The Gov­ern­ment re­port­ed that 85 peo­ple were brought be­fore the courts for traf­fick­ing and re­lat­ed of­fences be­tween 2013 and 2024. Trinidad and To­ba­go record­ed its first con­vic­tion for hu­man traf­fick­ing in 2023 and a sec­ond in 2025.

The re­port ac­knowl­edged that women and chil­dren con­tin­ue to bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bur­den of harm from do­mes­tic, sex­u­al and gen­der-based vi­o­lence.

It point­ed to amend­ments to the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act in 2020, which ex­pand­ed the de­f­i­n­i­tion of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence to in­clude phys­i­cal, sex­u­al, emo­tion­al, psy­cho­log­i­cal and fi­nan­cial abuse. Amend­ments to the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act in 2019 and 2021 were al­so cit­ed as part of ef­forts to strength­en pro­tec­tions.

On chil­dren's rights, the Gov­ern­ment high­light­ed the Na­tion­al Child Pol­i­cy 2020-2030, the work of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty and the de­vel­op­ment of a na­tion­al in­ter­a­gency pro­to­col for the pre­ven­tion and man­age­ment of child abuse.

The sub­mis­sion al­so ad­dressed equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion, ac­knowl­edg­ing that the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act does not cur­rent­ly in­clude pro­tec­tion against dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der iden­ti­ty.

It not­ed that the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion is­sued an LGBTI+ Work­place Pol­i­cy in March 2022, in­tend­ed to pre­vent dis­crim­i­na­tion against work­ers, clients and cus­tomers based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty, sex­u­al char­ac­ter­is­tics or as­so­ci­a­tion with peo­ple in the LGBTI+ com­mu­ni­ty.

The UPR is a process through which the hu­man rights records of all 193 UN Mem­ber States are ex­am­ined. The Work­ing Group com­pris­es the 47 mem­bers of the Hu­man Rights Coun­cil, al­though any UN Mem­ber or Ob­serv­er State can par­tic­i­pate in a coun­try's re­view and make rec­om­men­da­tions.

Trinidad and To­ba­go is among 14 coun­tries sched­uled to un­der­go ex­am­i­na­tion dur­ing the Work­ing Group's ses­sion, which runs from No­vem­ber 2 to 13.

Mon­day's pro­ceed­ings will be streamed live on the Unit­ed Na­tions web­site.