Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been con­grat­u­lat­ed by re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions on her com­mit­ment to end dis­crim­i­na­tion against gay peo­ple in T&T. The In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights (IACHR), an or­gan of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), is­sued a state­ment on De­cem­ber 20 wel­com­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's com­ments in a let­ter to Lance Price of the UK-based Kalei­do­scope Trust.

Price had writ­ten to the PM com­plain­ing about T&T's im­mi­gra­tion law and the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, which he said dis­crim­i­nat­ed against ho­mo­sex­u­als. Sec­tion 8 of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act bars en­try to ho­mo­sex­u­als, de­scrib­ing them as a "pro­hib­it­ed class." In her re­sponse, dat­ed Au­gust 14, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her Gov­ern­ment was giv­ing due con­sid­er­a­tion to the is­sues raised by Price.

IACHR not­ed the PM's po­si­tion was con­sis­tent with "the com­mit­ment made by OAS mem­ber states on June 4, 2012 to 'con­sid­er, with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the le­gal in­sti­tu­tions of their do­mes­tic sys­tems, adopt­ing pub­lic poli­cies against dis­crim­i­na­tion by rea­son of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty.'"

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said it had re­ceived "am­ple in­for­ma­tion" on the ex­treme vi­o­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion faced by les­bians, gays and trans- bi­sex­u­al and in­ter­sex peo­ple through­out the Amer­i­c­as, in­clud­ing the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean, and "is acute­ly aware that sev­er­al coun­tries of that re­gion, in­clud­ing T&T, still have laws crim­i­nal­is­ing same-sex sex­u­al re­la­tions be­tween con­sent­ing adults and oth­er laws used to pe­nalise in­di­vid­u­als be­cause of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der iden­ti­ty."

Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al, al­so on De­cem­ber 20, not­ed the PM and her Cab­i­net "have now an his­toric op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­sure that the Prime Min­is­ter's words be­come a re­al­i­ty." Amnesty point­ed out that T&T's Sex­u­al Of­fences Act crim­i­nalis­es con­sent­ing same-sex re­la­tion­ships, mak­ing them pun­ish­able with up to 25 years' im­pris­on­ment, de­pend­ing on the age of those found guilty, and that the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ties Act 2000 (EOA) ex­plic­it­ly ex­cludes dis­crim­i­na­tion on the grounds of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion.

Al­so ref­er­enc­ing to Sec­tion 8 of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act, Amnesty ac­knowl­edged that those pro­vi­sions were not en­forced but they con­tributed to cre­at­ing a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry en­vi­ron­ment. Mean­while, the Guyana Equal­i­ty Fo­rum (GEF) ap­plaud­ed the PM, say­ing it stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty with its Cari­com sis­ter.

"Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who con­tin­ues to dis­play firm po­lit­i­cal judg­ment, will def­i­nite­ly set a lega­cy by recog­nis­ing the rights and hu­man­i­ty of les­bian, gay, bi­sex­u­al and trans­gen­der (LGBT) cit­i­zens in the twin-­is­land re­pub­lic," said GEF rep­re­sen­ta­tive Al­is­tair Sonaram. "Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar should to be seen by the rest of the re­gion as a bold fe­male politi­cian who took a firm step to­wards hu­man rights and equal­i­ty and we hope her bold lead­er­ship in­spires oth­er Cari­com heads of state," he added.

The Rev Dr Sid Mohn, pres­i­dent of the Chica­go-based NGO Heart­land Al­liance, said the PM's com­ments demon­strat­ed an aware­ness of and re­spect for hu­man rights.