Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

List of issues in relation to the initial report of Trinidad and Tobago *

A.Purpose and general obligations (arts. 1–4)

1.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Plans to develop specific disability legislation;

(b)Measures taken to ensure that laws and policies are harmonized with the Convention and to ensure that the concept of disability used in the State Party, including in the implementation of the National Policy on Persons with Disabilities of 2018 and the Equal Opportunity Act of 2000, is fully in line with the Convention and the human rights model of disability as defined in the Committee’s general comment No. 6 (2018) on equality and non‑discrimination;

(c)Plans for the review of all legislation to ensure equal recognition before the law for persons with disabilities, including persons with psychosocial disabilities, and to ensure the right to legal capacity;

(d)Plans to review and eradicate all language within laws and policies that is derogatory, discriminatory, stereotypical and/or harmful in referring to persons with disabilities;

(e)Current policies and national strategies, including time frames, goals and the human, technical and financial resources established, for the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities, especially women and children with disabilities living in rural and remote areas;

(f)Measures taken to ensure that persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities, are closely consulted and actively involved, through their representative organizations, in all strategic and legislative activities spanning the full range of issues affecting them;

(g)Measures taken to ensure that the rights of persons with disabilities, including those in rural and remote areas, are being protected, respected and promoted;

(h)The achievements of the Social Inclusion and Disability Office and the progress made in implementing the national rehabilitation programme to improve the lives of people with disabilities;

(i)An update on the National Development Strategy 2016–2030, including in relation to the national review of all programmes and services directed to the disability sector to determine the availability of and gaps in programming.

B.Specific rights (arts. 5–30)

Equality and non-discrimination (art. 5)

2.Please provide information on:

(a)Legal and other measures taken to prohibit, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention, all forms of disability-based discrimination in national legislation;

(b)Plans to revise the Constitution with a view to expressly prohibiting disability-based discrimination;

(c)Recognition, by the State Party, of denial of reasonable accommodation as a form of disability-based discrimination;

(d)The types of administrative and judicial remedies available and the redress accorded to victims, particularly women and girls with disabilities, who are affected by multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination;

(e)Plans, if any, to expand the definition of disability in legislation and to establish a duty of reasonable accommodation in the Equal Opportunity Act.

Women with disabilities (art. 6)

3.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to develop specific strategies for the promotion, development and empowerment of women and girls with disabilities and to ensure that general strategies to advance gender equality and address gender-based violence are disability-inclusive and promote the realization of the rights of women and girls with disabilities;

(b) The steps taken to implement the Green Paper on Gender and Equality (2018) and whether a more recent version of it has been or is being developed;

(c)Measures adopted to prevent multiple and intersectional discrimination against women and girls with disabilities, in particular those with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities, in all spheres of life, including access to education, employment, healthcare and social services, throughout the State Party;

(d)The participation of women with disabilities in decision-making, including through their representative organizations and measures, including affirmative action, to increase the number of women with disabilities in decision-making bodies;

(e)Information about any established non-governmental organizations or State agencies that specifically work to empower and represent women and girls with disabilities and an update on the Trinidad and Tobago Women with Disabilities Network.

Children with disabilities (art. 7)

4.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to develop specific strategies for the promotion, development and empowerment of children with disabilities and to ensure that general strategies to advance children’s rights are disability-inclusive and promote the realization of the rights of children with disabilities;

(b)Measures taken to eliminate barriers, including stigmatization and exclusion, that may prevent children with disabilities from having access to social protection, health services and an inclusive, quality education system on an equal basis with other children and, in particular, to ensure that they are enrolled in school and provided with suitable assistive devices;

(c)Measures taken, with appropriate budgetary, human, technical and financial resources, to enable children with disabilities, through their representative organizations, to participate in decision-making processes in matters that concern them.

Awareness-raising (art. 8)

5.Please provide information on:

(a)The extent to which persons with disabilities are closely consulted and actively involved, through their representative organizations, in the development and implementation of public awareness campaigns, policies and programmes;

(b)Measures taken to combat marginalization, stereotypes, stigma, prejudice and discrimination concerning persons with disabilities in all areas of life;

(c)Measures to ensure that intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, including autism, are included in awareness-raising campaigns, policies and programmes and portrayed by the media in a dignified manner;

(d)Awareness-raising training on disability rights for employers, service providers, judicial and police officers, policymakers, planners and all other public officials and decision makers;

(e)Measures taken to ensure the prevention of stereotypical and harmful portrayals of persons with disabilities and fetuses with disabilities.

Accessibility (art. 9)

6.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Measures taken to ensure an accessible built environment for persons with disabilities, including in terms of the design of buildings and structures, improvements to transport and measures taken in the field of information and communications technologies, in accordance with the provisions of article 9 of the Convention, as described in general comment No. 2 (2014) on accessibility;

(b)The progress made in access to sidewalks and roads, in equipping traffic lights with sound signals and voice announcements and in ensuring adequate access to buses and other public transport for persons with disabilities and equal access to driver’s permits and licences;

(c)Measures taken to implement both the amendments under the Planning and Development Act 2014 and the National Standard for Accessible and Useable Buildings and Facilities, as well as legislative and policy changes made to ensure that national building codes and voluntary standards on accessibility become mandatory, in order to ensure the accessibility of buildings for persons with disabilities;

(d)Measures taken to create an effective independent monitoring mechanism in this regard.

Right to life (art. 10)

7.Please provide information on the measures taken to safeguard persons with disabilities, including persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities and autistic persons, from being sentenced to death, and please provide information on steps taken to amend national laws in order to abolish the death penalty.

Situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies (art. 11)

8.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Measures taken to amend all relevant legislation, in particular the Disasters Measures Act (Act No. 47 of 1978) on governing disaster management, to include disability in disaster risk reduction programmes, notably by closely consulting and actively involving persons with disabilities, through their representative organizations, in the development of such legislation, and to ensure equal and safe access, accessible evacuation measures and emergency shelters;

(b)Any disaster risk reduction strategy that includes organizations of persons with disabilities, in accordance with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction2015–2030.

9.Please provide information on measures taken to put in place a targeted and sustainable humanitarian emergency framework with a view to ensuring that the rights of persons with disabilities are protected on an equal basis with others, particularly in the context of public health emergencies. Please also inform the Committee about:

(a)Measures taken to provide persons with disabilities with accessible information in a manner appropriate to the scale of an emergency;

(b)Measures taken to provide training on disability rights and on safe and dignified emergency evacuation to first responders, service providers, police officers and all other relevant public and private individuals;

(c)Measures taken to ensure continued access to support services and general community services, including in-home support and personal assistance, throughout the entire emergency period;

(d)Measures taken to ensure equal access to healthcare, particularly life-saving measures.

Equal recognition before the law (art. 12)

10.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to incorporate into existing legislation the right to recognition before the law of all persons with disabilities, particularly persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities; and on measures taken to ensure that persons with disabilities are recognized before the law in all civil, criminal and administrative matters and have equal enjoyment of rights in relation to property, the conclusion of administrative and legal acts, inheritance, voting and decision-making;

(b)The number and proportion of persons with disabilities, particularly persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities, under guardianship and the measures taken to move them from guardianship to supported decision-making regimes, in line with the Convention and the Committee’s general comment No. 1 (2014) on equal recognition before the law.

Access to justice (art. 13)

11.Please provide information on:

(a)The measures that the State Party has taken or intends to take to provide procedural, gender- and age-appropriate accommodations in judicial and administrative proceedings for persons with disabilities, including persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities and persons who are deaf, hard of hearing or deafblind and on measures to provide information in accessible formats such as Braille, Easy Read and sign language and to ensure the physical accessibility of court buildings and all judicial and administrative facilities;

(b)Measures taken to ensure that sentencing authorities may take into account a person’s disability in determining the sentence for a capital offence and the procedure or procedures by which courts determine, under section 4A (1) of the Offences Against the Person Act, whether a person is ineligible for the death penalty;

(c)Measures taken to ensure funding and training for defence counsel to invoke section 4A (1) of the Offences Against the Person Act in capital cases and any State funding for defence counsel to enlist experts to ascertain whether defendants have any psychosocial or intellectual disabilities that may be relevant to their defence;

(d)Access to legal aid for persons with disabilities;

(e)Training programmes for judicial, law enforcement and correctional officials on the rights enshrined in the Convention, as well as accommodations in these programmes for persons with disabilities so that they can become part of the judicial system as lawyers, judges or other law enforcement personnel;

(f)Measures taken to implement an independent monitoring mechanism to ensure that accommodations for persons with disabilities in judicial and administrative proceedings are actualized in an effective and efficient manner;

(g)Measures taken to ensure that there is an accessible, effective and independent complaints mechanism for persons with disabilities, including those who are in prison or detention centres.

Liberty and security of person (art. 14)

12.Please provide information on:

(a)Statistical data, disaggregated by sex and impairment, on the number of persons with disabilities, including those with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, placed in mental health facilities or in detention, on the grounds of a real or supposed impairment, without their free and informed consent, and specify any measures taken to guarantee their right to liberty and security of the persons;

(b)Steps taken to repeal any legislation or policies or to eradicate practices that allow, require or tolerate involuntary or forced institutionalization, forced treatment, the imposition of restrictions or the seclusion of persons with disabilities, particularly persons with psychosocial disabilities;

(c)The current status of the National Mental Health Policy 2019–2029 and its operational plan, which was developed in 2020, and the steps taken to implement them;

(d)Measures taken to ensure that individualized reasonable accommodation and medical services are provided to persons with disabilities who are in prison and detention centres and to ensure that they have access to independent complaint mechanisms if they are not in receipt of individualized reasonable accommodations;

(e)The circumstances under which a person with a psychosocial disability who is incarcerated may be subjected to solitary confinement, as well as the maximum duration of solitary confinement.

Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (art. 15)

13.Please provide information on:

(a)The legal and other measures taken to prevent persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, from being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including the mandatory death penalty, and the measures adopted to punish the perpetrators of such acts and the steps taken to establish independent monitoring mechanisms;

(b)Measures taken to provide personal hygiene conditions and supplies for women, transgender men and gender-non-conforming persons with disabilities in prisons to ensure that their conditions of incarcerationdo not constitute inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

(c)Steps taken by authorities to address concerns about inhumane conditions of detention for persons with disabilities at St. Ann’s Hospital;

(d)Measures taken to train police and prison officers on the prohibition of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of persons with disabilities and measures taken to ensure that the prohibition is enforced through an independent complaints mechanism that is accessible to persons with disabilities.

14.Plans to review the language of the Offences Against the Person Act to remove language that is discriminatory, derogatory and stereotypical in relation to persons with disabilities.

Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse (art. 16)

15.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Measures taken to eradicate all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse in relation to persons with disabilities, including domestic violence, sexual violence and neglect;

(b)Measures taken to protect the safety of women with disabilities who are held in penal, psychiatric or other institutions and who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse;

(c)Measures taken to deal with the exposure of children with disabilities to violence, exploitation and abuse;

(d)Measures taken to create a safe and accessible environment for reporting, investigating and prosecuting cases of exploitation, violence or abuse in relation to persons with disabilities;

(e)Measures taken to provide access to the services necessary for victims’ recovery, rehabilitation and social reintegration, taking into account their age, disability and sex;

(f)The proportion of persons who are victims of physical and/or sexual abuse or harassment or other violence, disaggregated by sex, age, disability status and place of occurrence, in the previous 12 months.

Protecting the integrity of the person (art. 17)

16.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to prohibit any form of exploitation and the performance of any non-consensual medical intervention, including sterilization, castration, contraception and forced abortion, on persons with disabilities, particularly those with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities;

(b)Measures taken to collect and make available reliable and disaggregated statistical data on the number of cases of violations of article 17 of the Convention;

(c)Measures taken to ensure that remedies put in place for violations of the integrity of persons with disabilities are accessible to victims with disabilities.

Liberty of movement and nationality (art. 18)

17.Please provide information on the situation of persons with disabilities who are migrant workers, asylum-seekers, refugees and in refugee-like situations, as well as on any legislative or policy frameworks aimed at guaranteeing their rights under the Convention and protecting them from statelessness. Please provide details on the steps being taken to ensure that a person who has a disability, and is not a citizen or resident, is not disadvantaged in immigration proceedings.

Living independently and being included in the community (art. 19)

18.Please provide information on:

(a)Plans for the adoption of a national deinstitutionalization strategy in line with the Convention and with the Committee’s guidelines on deinstitutionalization, including in emergencies, the related timetable and budgetary allocations and the involvement of organizations of persons with disabilities in the strategy’s design and implementation;

(b)The resources allocated to support measures and action plans to promote independent living and inclusion in the community of persons with disabilities;

(c)The availability of personal assistance for persons with disabilities, including in-home support and support services, as well as the technological support envisaged under social services and health legislation, indicating if these services are free of charge;

(d)The results achieved in implementing measures to promote the independent living of persons with disabilities and their inclusion in the community.

Personal mobility (art. 20)

19.Please provide information on the measures taken to ensure that mobility aids and assistive devices required by persons with disabilities are accessible and affordable. Please provide information on the proportion of persons with disabilities entitled to mobility aids and assistive devices.

20.Please provide an update on the facilitation of assistive mobile devices for persons with visual impairments and persons who are deaf or hard of hearing through the Disability Affairs Unit and the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago from 2019, and on whether any further collaborations for this purpose have been established.

Freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information (art. 21)

21.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Steps taken to provide content for persons with visual impairments throughout the State Party and to provide literacy training in accessible formats further to signing the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled in 2019 and the 2019 memorandum of understanding with the Trinidad and Tobago Blind Welfare Association;

(b)Measures taken to promote and protect the freedom of expression of persons with disabilities, including persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities;

(c)Measures taken to recognize national sign language as an official language of the State Party, in close consultation with and with the active involvement of the deaf community;

(d)Measures taken to improve access to information in accessible formats, including Braille, Easy Read and electronic and virtual formats, as well as other means and modes of augmentative and alternative communication, and to make information and communications technologies accessible to persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others;

(e)Measures taken to make television programmes accessible to persons with disabilities by means of audio description, sign language and subtitling and to adopt the standards of the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium when creating or publishing content on the Internet;

(f)The status of the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago road map to implement universal service initiatives for persons with disabilities, and the planned budgetary allocations.

Respect for privacy (art. 22)

22.Please provide information on the laws, regulations and/or policies governing the protection of the private data of persons with disabilities.

Respect for home and the family (art. 23)

23.Please inform the Committee about the measures taken to ensure that persons with disabilities can exercise their rights and responsibilities with respect to marriage, family, parenthood and relationships, including the adoption of children, on an equal basis with others.

Education (art. 24)

24.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)The status of the implementation of the National Policy on Persons with Disabilities of 2018, the InclusiveEducationPolicy and the draft inclusive education policy paper 2017–2022 as they relate to fulfilling the right to education of persons with disabilities under the Convention, as well as progress to ensure that, in practice, all children with disabilities are included in mainstream public schools and have access to individualized support services;

(b)The funding available and the steps taken to provide reasonable accommodation for students with disabilities based on individual needs, to provide them with the support they need within the mainstream education system and to continue to train teachers and all school administrators and non-teaching staff to provide inclusive, quality education settings, in line with general comment No. 4 (2016) on the right to inclusive education, measures taken to promote and encourage the training and recruitment of teachers with disabilities and measures taken to implement targets 4.5 and 4.a of the Sustainable Development Goals;

(c)Measures taken to diminish the large gap in the completion of secondary education between persons with disabilities and persons without disabilities;

(d)Measures taken to ensure that prospective and matriculated students with disabilities at post-secondary levels of education are provided with reasonable accommodations based on individual needs and that there are mechanisms for support, complaints and redress for students who experience barriers in pursuing university and other post-secondary education, and measures taken to ensure that the built environment and the information and communications technologies of post-secondary educational institutions are accessible and based on principles of universal design;

(e)Measures taken to ensure adequate provision, including in rural and remote areas, of teacher and student aides and sign languages interpreters, technical assistance for teachers and students in classrooms, assessment services, individualized education plans and measures to support children with disabilities who are bullied;

(f)The number of children with disabilities enrolled in mainstream schools and in special schools or separate educational institutions at different levels of education, as a proportion of the total number of children with disabilities attending both types of educational institution, disaggregated by sex and type of disability, and mechanisms to monitor and follow up on the attainment of educational diplomas and degrees by children, youth and adults with disabilities;

(g)The number and percentage of persons with disabilities with access to education (at the primary, secondary and post-secondary levels), disaggregated by age and sex, type of disability and type of school;

(h)Measures taken to support children with disabilities in special schools who are transitioning to mainstream schools to allow for more inclusive education.

Health (art. 25)

25.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure access to health services, including to means of communication and medical equipment, as well as measures to systematically train healthcare personnel on the rights of persons with disabilities to access healthcare and health services;

(b)Measures taken to standardize the early detection and diagnosis of disability-related impairments in young children;

(c)Measures taken to ensure that persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities, have access to sexual and reproductive health services and to information on HIV/AIDS on an equal basis with others;

(d)Measures taken to ensure that persons with disabilities are not subjected to medical treatment or procedures without their free and informed consent;

(e)Measures taken to train healthcare professionals and support staff in the human rights model of disability and to avoid discriminatory and negative attitudes and stereotypes towards persons with disabilities, particularly those with psychosocial and/or intellectual disabilities;

(f)The status of implementation of the National Mental Health Policy 2019–2029;

(g)The status of a directory of services and service providers in the country that cater to persons with disabilities.

26.Please specify whether health information and education are available in all accessible formats, including Braille, Easy Read, electronic and online formats, as well as other means and modes of augmentative and alternative communication.

Habilitation and rehabilitation (art. 26)

27.Please explain the legal safeguards and strategies and the applicable standards adopted to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to individual, adequate and affordable habilitation and rehabilitation services, at the community level, throughout their lives, regardless of their social and economic situation.

28.Please inform the Committee about the steps taken to ensure that rehabilitation services, including specialist services such as speech and occupational therapy or assistive devices, are available through the free public healthcare system or otherwise free of cost to the user;

29.Please provide information on habilitation and rehabilitation measures to combat long-term unemployment among persons with disabilities;

30.Please provide information on specific measures taken in relation to the National Policy on Persons with Disabilities of 2018 to establish independent monitoring mechanisms to ensure that quality service is being provided by non-governmental organizations involved in the provision of rehabilitation, skills training and other services to persons with disabilities;

31.Please provide information on measures taken to collect data on access to rehabilitation services and assistive products to ensure that they meet the needs of persons with disabilities and please advise of plans to develop a national rehabilitation policy and related implementation plan.

Work and employment (art. 27)

32.Please indicate:

(a)Measures taken by authorities, including the Ministry of Labour and Small and Micro Enterprise Development, to increase the employment of persons with disabilities in the open labour market and the number of women and men with disabilities participating in initiatives or programmes aimed at improving access to work and employment;

(b)Steps taken to encourage the employment of persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities in the open labour market and to provide employers with training on the rights of persons with disabilities and on reasonable accommodation;

(c)Progress towards effective implementation of the obligation for employers to provide reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities in both the public and the private sectors;

(d)Measures taken for the effective participation, consultation and representation of organizations of persons with disabilities in work-related matters.

Adequate standard of living and social protection (art. 28)

33.Please provide information on:

(a)Measures taken to ensure that all persons with disabilities have access to social protection programmes and poverty-reduction support services on an equal basis with others, as well as to specific programmes and services for persons with disabilities living in poverty to enable them to meet additional, disability-related costs;

(b)Social protection measures to allow persons with disabilities, particularly families with a child or parent with disabilities, to afford the additional costs associated with disability;

(c)The review of the allocation of the Disability Assistance Grant.

Participation in political and public life (art. 29)

34.Please indicate:

(a)Measures taken to ensure the full participation of persons with disabilities in all aspects of electoral processes, political life and public life;

(b)Measures taken to ensure the physical accessibility of all polling stations and the use of accessible formats, including Braille, in electoral material and information and to ensure that persons with disabilities are guaranteed secrecy in the voting process;

(c)Measures taken to ensure full accessibility of election procedures, facilities information and materials, including in Braille, Easy Read and sign language;

(d)Measures taken to increase the participation of persons with disabilities, particularly women with disabilities, in political and public life, including as elected representatives, and to support candidates with disabilities to stand for elections, specifying the number of persons with disabilities who have stood as candidates, been elected or been appointed to public service or public office;

(e)Measures taken to provide civic education to persons with disabilities on electoral processes and participation in political and public life.

35.Please specify whether persons with intellectual disabilities can stand for election and participate in public affairs and inform the Committee about any accessible information provided to candidates with intellectual disabilities (in Easy Read or other accessible format) on the right to participate in political and public life.

Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport (art. 30)

36.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Measures taken to eliminate social and environmental barriers hindering the participation of persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities and artists with disabilities, in cultural life and in recreational, leisure and sports activities;

(b)Measures taken to implement the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled.

C.Specific obligations (arts. 31–33)

Statistics and data collection (art. 31)

37.Please indicate:

(a)Measures taken to collect information to inform public policies, including disaggregated qualitative and quantitative data and statistics, on persons with disabilities, including women and girls with disabilities, older persons with disabilities, persons with intellectual and/or psychosocial disabilities, persons with disabilities from intersecting backgrounds of marginalization, and the most marginalized groups among persons with disabilities;

(b)Please indicate what measures have been taken to establish institutional mechanisms to collect disaggregated qualitative and quantitative data on persons with disabilities, including women and girls, minorities, migrants, refugees and older persons with disabilities and persons with psychosocial and/or intellectual disabilities, using such tools as the Washington Group short set of questions on functioning;

(c)Whether the Disability Affairs Unit continues to gather data through in-house collection, utilizing information from recipients of the Disability Assistance Grant to compile the National Register of Persons with Disabilities, and how these data are stored;

(d)Measures taken for central and local governments to collaborate in programmes offered to mitigate duplications and ensure that maximum available resources are mobilized across sectors.

International cooperation (art. 32)

38.Please indicate how persons with disabilities, through their representative organizations, are closely consulted and actively involved in the design and implementation of international cooperation agreements, ensuring that funds provided to other countries are not used for actions contrary to those provided for in the Convention.

National implementation and monitoring (art. 33)

39.Please inform the Committee about:

(a)Measures taken to establish an independent mechanism to monitor the implementation of the Convention, with sufficient budgetary allocations and taking into account the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights (the Paris Principles);

(b)Measures taken to ensure the close consultation and active involvement of persons with disabilities, through their representative organizations, in the development and implementation of monitoring mechanisms.