Soyi­ni Grey

The US State De­part­ment’s 2022 Coun­try Re­port on Hu­man Right’s Prac­tices for T&T is flag­ging po­lice im­puni­ty, the treat­ment of asy­lum seek­ers, cor­rup­tion and traf­fick­ing of per­sons as ar­eas of ma­jor con­cern.

“The Gov­ern­ment took steps to iden­ti­fy, in­ves­ti­gate, pros­e­cute and pun­ish of­fi­cials who com­mit­ted hu­man rights abus­es or cor­rup­tion, but im­puni­ty per­sist­ed due to open-end­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the gen­er­al­ly slow pace of crim­i­nal ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings,” the re­port found in its sec­tion on T&T.

The re­port, which was re­leased yes­ter­day, is di­vid­ed in­to sev­en sec­tions, with the longest deal­ing with dis­crim­i­na­tion and so­ci­etal abus­es which as­sessed the laws that dealt with rape, gen­der-based vi­o­lence, child abuse and var­i­ous forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion.

It found that “rape and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence were se­ri­ous and per­va­sive prob­lems” but de­spite the es­tab­lish­ment of a Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit with­in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, vic­tims still com­plained that of­fi­cers triv­i­alised re­ports of abuse and rape, es­pe­cial­ly if the vic­tim and the per­pe­tra­tor are mar­ried to each oth­er. The re­port al­so found that courts “of­ten im­posed con­sid­er­ably short­er sen­tences in cas­es of spousal rape.”

The re­port high­light­ed the shoot­ing death of PC Clarence Gilkes in April last year and the treat­ment of Jehlano Rom­ney, who was ini­tial­ly named as the pri­ma­ry sus­pect be­fore the in­ves­ti­ga­tion fin­gered po­lice of­fi­cers for the shoot­ing death of their col­league.

It al­so high­light­ed the shoot­ing death of Fa­bi­en Richards, Leonar­do Niko Williams and Isa­iah Roberts in Ju­ly of 2022 by po­lice in Port-of-Spain. The men’s fam­i­lies had pro­claimed their in­no­cence and the au­top­sy found that all had been shot from be­hind.

The shoot­ing of Jamie Walk­er in the park­ing lot of WEE Su­per­mar­ket by a spe­cial re­serve po­lice of­fi­cer last Oc­to­ber and the 2021 deaths of Joel Bal­con and An­drew Mor­ris while in po­lice cus­tody were al­so high­light­ed. Bal­con and Mor­ris had been ar­rest­ed for the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt in 2021.

While both the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau were ac­knowl­edged as in­ves­ti­gat­ing these in­ci­dents, the re­port not­ed that all re­main un­re­solved by the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Cor­rup­tion at all lev­els of state op­er­a­tion was al­so not­ed.

“Cred­i­ble re­ports of opaque pub­lic pro­cure­ment process­es and pub­lic ser­vice con­tracts with known gang lead­ers were a con­cern. Statutes gov­ern­ing con­flicts of in­ter­est were rarely en­forced, mak­ing nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion com­mon­place. There were cred­i­ble re­ports of gov­ern­ment min­istries and pub­lic com­pa­nies ma­nip­u­lat­ing or by­pass­ing es­tab­lished pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures to favour spe­cif­ic ven­dors un­fair­ly,” the re­port found.

The gen­er­al state of the pris­ons were found to be want­i­ng, with the re­port sin­gling out the min­i­mal im­prove­ment in the women’s fa­cil­i­ties.

Last June, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds an­nounced sev­er­al re­fur­bish­ment pro­grammes for many pris­ons. In fis­cal 2022, the Gov­ern­ment al­lo­cat­ed just over $15 mil­lion to fa­cil­i­tate up­grades and the tran­si­tion of the pris­ons from “a sys­tem of ret­ri­bu­tion to restora­tion” via a va­ri­ety of projects, in­clud­ing the ren­o­va­tion of a ra­tion room with­in the Gold­en Grove Prison which is 82% com­plete, ac­cord­ing to the Pub­lic Sec­tor In­vest­ment Pro­gramme 2022.

Com­ment­ing yes­ter­day on the gen­er­al state of hu­man rights in T&T in the wake of the re­port’s re­lease, Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Cen­tre for Hu­man Rights, Denise Pitch­er, said, “We do en­joy a rel­a­tive­ly high lev­el of hu­man rights in Trinidad and To­ba­go in terms of ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, ac­cess to health but we do fall short in quite a num­ber of ways.”

She said ac­cess to jus­tice re­mains a mas­sive prob­lem and forms a “big gap” in the coun­try’s hu­man rights record. She said the lev­el of gen­der-based vi­o­lence is al­so “par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing” and there re­main se­ri­ous is­sues sur­round the vi­o­la­tion of the rights of chil­dren.

Pitch­er said while no coun­try is im­mune from hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, the scale of the vi­o­la­tions here, es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to the pop­u­la­tion, was “par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­turb­ing.”

Un­der the sec­tion “Re­spect for Civ­il Lib­er­ties,” the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion for Refugees (UN­HCR) was re­ferred to sev­er­al times for its work with refugees and asy­lum-seek­ers in the re­port. How­ev­er, the re­port notes there re­mains no for­mal process for per­sons seek­ing asy­lum. So, while the UN­HCR is al­lowed to de­ter­mine who can be as­signed refugee sta­tus, the US re­port found “a pos­i­tive de­ter­mi­na­tion by UN­HCR, how­ev­er, did not con­fer recog­ni­tion by the Gov­ern­ment of an in­di­vid­ual as a refugee or oth­er­wise af­fect the per­son’s le­gal sta­tus in the coun­try.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, the UN­HCR said it works with part­ners, in­clud­ing the T&T Gov­ern­ment, to serve refugees and asy­lum seek­ers and “con­tin­ues to ad­vo­cate for refugee and asy­lum seek­er chil­dren to ac­cess na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion through reg­u­lar di­a­logue with the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er key stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing asy­lum seek­ers and refugees who would like the op­por­tu­ni­ty to go to school” be­cause that ac­cess re­mains de­nied.

It con­tin­ued, “We stand ready to sup­port Trinidad and To­ba­go on fur­ther steps to de­vel­op the na­tion­al frame­work for refugees and asy­lum seek­ers who re­side in the coun­try.”

The re­port is the lat­est neg­a­tive as­sess­ment of this coun­try’s hu­man rights pro­ce­dures from the Unit­ed States. T&T re­mains on a Tier 2 Watch­list for the 2022 Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Re­port, which means it runs the risk of be­ing black­list­ed by the US as a re­sult. That re­port said then that while the Gov­ern­ment did not ful­ly meet the min­i­mum stan­dards, it was mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant ef­forts to do so.