2020 LGBTI Policy Agenda
This 2020 LGBTI Policy Agenda 2.0 includes critical areas of concern that resonate with the previous agendas, reflects updates and more specific calls to action from the Government to address the following concerns: State Capacity and Training on Human Rights; Discrimination in and Access to Employment, Healthcare, Housing and Goods/Services; Poverty and Homelessness; Comprehensive Sex Education; Gender-Based and LGBTI Violence and Policing; Legislative and Policy exclusions and blindspots
Add All Three
The Add All Three to the EOA Campaign is a call by a broad coalition of organisations to add protections based on LGBTI status, as well as age and health conditions, to the 20-year-old law. There is, to date, no legislation which explicitly offers protection on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. CAISO has been advocating for legislative changes, particularly of the Equal Opportunity Act, to expand protections for LGBTI+ people.
So how do we Add All Three?
Black Feminist Mapping
The Black Feminist Transnational Mapping Project is a critical part of our ongoing efforts to build collective power, nurture authentic and ongoing solidarity, and more efficiently reach the collective and individual goals of Black Feminist leaders and organisations. CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice is a member of the Collaborative and is a feminist LGBTQI+ civil society organisation in Trinidad and Tobago. We are mapping the Caribbean (English- and Dutch-speaking) region. The CAISO team for this project includes Chinyere Brown, Angelique Nixon, and Catherine Shepherd.
Demand State Action
We urge the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to immediately implement a transparent and collaborative strategy for addressing the national crisis of gender-based violence. This includes providing sufficient funding for shelters, civil society organisations and government agencies working to combat gender-based violence – and most of all declaring a national emergency. We remind the Government of the demands, hand-delivered to the Honourable Prime Minister on February 28th, 2020.
We call upon the government to ACT NOW
Model Workplace Policy
One of the assets of doing business in Trinidad & Tobago is the diversity of our workforce. It’s no secret from the management literature that workplaces that encourage and accommodate worker diversity see the returns in their bottom line. Researchers have also begun to document the costs to national economies of anti-LGBTQI+ discrimination. Not to mention the economic and psychological harms to the workers themselves and their families. Ensuring LGBTQI+ people find an equal place at work is in the interest not just of those workers but many others.