Yvonne Ba­boolal

Ac­tivist Col­in Robin­son, head of CAISO (Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for the In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al?Ori­en­ta­tion), is call­ing for the re­lease of the na­tion­al gen­der pol­i­cy and says min­is­te­r­i­al lead­er­ship has been a fac­tor in the lack of one. Robin­son was re­spond­ing to ques­tions on Gen­der,?Child and Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Mar­lene Coudray's re­cent state­ment that on­ly she or the Prime Min­is­ter could make state­ments on the pol­i­cy.

Fur­ther, Coudray said, those state­ments would be made when the pol­i­cy, which is be­fore Cab­i­net, is com­plet­ed. She did not say when that would be. Coudray's re­lease came in re­sponse to a T&T Guardian ar­ti­cle which quot­ed for­mer par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary in the gen­der af­fairs min­istry Ra­mona Ram­di­al as say­ing the pol­i­cy states a per­son should not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against be­cause of his or her sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.

Asked if that meant gays could not be dis­crim­i­nat­ed against, Ram­di­al said such a lifestyle was al­ready an in­for­mal part of our so­ci­ety. Robin­son, who said he was ini­tial­ly thrilled with Ram­di­al's dis­clo­sure, ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Coudray's re­sponse.

Asked if he felt the Gov­ern­ment was de­lay­ing the re­lease of the pol­i­cy be­cause of fear that the con­tro­ver­sial gay rights pro­vi­sion would raise a hor­net's nest, he said: "It is not go­ing to raise a hor­net's nest. "T&T is a ma­ture so­ci­ety. It's a ques­tion of min­is­te­r­i­al lead­er­ship in shep­herd­ing the pol­i­cy."

Dis­ap­prov­ing of the post­pone­ment of a pol­i­cy deal­ing with crit­i­cal is­sues, Robin­son said peo­ple had been ad­vo­cat­ing for a gen­der pol­i­cy for two decades. "Why did the Prime Min­is­ter go through all of this, set up a gen­der af­fairs min­istry, ap­point a gen­der af­fairs min­is­ter? We still don't have a gen­der pol­i­cy be­cause of a lack of min­is­te­r­i­al lead­er­ship."

Dr Gabrielle Ho­sein of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies' Gen­der and De­vel­op­ment Stud­ies Unit on Tues­day sent out a re­quest to the Cab­i­net and Coudray for "clear" in­for­ma­tion on the sta­tus of the pol­i­cy.

"Re­cent­ly, con­tra­dic­to­ry state­ments have been made to the press that the pol­i­cy was ap­proved by Cab­i­net and, at the same time, it was al­so still in the con­sul­ta­tion phase. These two re­al­i­ties are not si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly pos­si­ble. Ei­ther the pol­i­cy has been ap­proved or it has not," Ho­sein said. "Ei­ther con­sul­ta­tion re­mains on­go­ing and trans­par­ent­ly open to all or lob­by­ing is qui­et­ly go­ing on," she said.

Ho­sein said the gen­der min­is­ter need­ed to clar­i­fy the mean­ing of her state­ment that, "The Prime Min­is­ter has asked that we call in peo­ple who had in­di­cat­ed that they want to say some­thing." "Who are these peo­ple and how were they iden­ti­fied? By what means are they giv­ing their views? Is this last-minute con­sul­ta­tion as wide­ly par­tic­i­pa­to­ry as the process has been over the last decade?" Ho­sein asked.

She said free­dom from dis­crim­i­na­tion on any ba­sis, in­clud­ing sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, should be at the pol­i­cy's foun­da­tion, but it should be more far-reach­ing than that.