Persons with Disabilities to Review Key Laws to Reduce Discrimination

Persons with Disabilities will be equipped and empowered to participate in a landmark review of three key pieces of national legislation to address gaps that may reinforce discrimination, as part of an initiative by the UN in T&T.

The two-year project, which began in January 2022, is being funded by a US $300,000 grant from the UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Multi-Partner Trust Fund (UNPRPD MPTF). It will be implemented by the country offices of PAHO/WHO and the UNFPA, with oversight from the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office.

This project is phase two of a programme that began last year and featured extensive consultations with Persons with Disabilities, organisations that represent them, government stakeholders, academia and UN agencies in T&T.

During those consultations, Persons with Disabilities said they continue to face inequality, discrimination, challenges accessing public services and poor socio-economic outcomes.

This feedback became the focus of an evaluation report which signaled an urgent need to: consistently incorporate disability considerations into the legislative process; strengthen the availability of disability support services at the community level; and remove barriers that prevent Persons with Disabilities from enjoying productive and effective participation in the workforce and in society.

These recommendations will be implemented in this phase two project, titled, “#NoOneLeftBehind: Empowering Persons with Disabilities to Promote Inclusion, Awareness and Access in Trinidad and Tobago.”

“PAHO/WHO is committed to supporting Trinidad and Tobago in promoting the active involvement and participation of persons with disabilities in the planning of strategies and policies that affect their lives. Together, we can achieve the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Dr. Erica Wheeler, PAHO/WHO Representative to Trinidad and Tobago.

UNFPA Director of the Sub-Regional Office for the Caribbean, Alison Drayton, added, “In 2021, UNFPA launched a brand new disability inclusion strategy geared at accelerating the kind of organisational change that welcomes diversity and ensures equality. This initiative supports persons with disabilities to participate in reviewing three pieces of national legislation that will, no doubt, affect their lives. This is another clear demonstration of our commitment to the key Agenda 2030 principles, which has ‘leaving no one behind’ as a key component.”

During the two-year project, a legislation review panel will be created from among the community of Persons with Disabilities to review and generate draft amendments for the Equal Opportunities Act, the Education Act, the Mental Health Act and/or the Immigration Act, to ensure there are stronger provisions for equality and non-discrimination within the workplace, the school system and the public health system. These proposed amendments will better align these key pieces of legislation with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and will be submitted to the government for consideration.

To prepare them for this advocacy, the UN in T&T will train 100 participants from the community of Persons with Disabilities and other key partners in policy review and advocacy.

The project will also provide training to multiple government stakeholders so that policy advisors, legal staff and support staff are better equipped to create and review legislation and make it more disability inclusive.

Another key outcome of the project will be the creation of guidelines for disability-inclusive policy, which will be shared with all branches of government. These guidelines will include strategies on how to reach underrepresented groups within the community of Persons with Disabilities – such as women and persons with intellectual disabilities. A complementary checklist will also be developed to evaluate whether newly developed or amended policy is disability inclusive before it is finalised.

To support the momentum to make national policy more disability inclusive, the project will also generate national guidelines for the collection of disability data. According to the 2011 Population and Housing Census in T&T, there are approximately 52,000 people living with a disability – at least 4% of the total population. The UN in T&T will support the country in standardising the way disability data is collected across all sectors, allowing for deeper dives into reliable, disaggregated data on income levels, employment, education and social protection for Persons with Disabilities. This data can then be used to create disability-inclusive policies and programmes across all sectors.

This objective is in line with the UN in T&T’s ongoing support to the Central Statistical Office and the Ministry of Planning to modernise the country’s statistical ecosystem and generate data to track the country’s progress on the SDGs.

Finally, by the time the project ends in December 2023, there will be a national plan to improve community-level access to disability support services, including rehabilitation services and assistive technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has deepened pre-existing inequalities, revealing the extent to which Persons with Disabilities are excluded from civic participation, employment and education. Urgent action through public policy in the short, medium and long term is required to ensure the rights of persons with disabilities are respected, protected and fulfilled, and that all persons with disabilities are empowered and supported to fully participate in society. The UN in T&T, led in this initiative by PAHO/WHO and UNFPA, are committed to supporting the country to ensure no one is left behind as we recover from the pandemic and make progress to achieving the SDGs by 2030.