分类： society

Trinidad and Tobago has long positioned itself as a socially tolerant nation, but LGBTQI+ rights organizations and community advocates are pushing back against that narrative, pointing to deeply entrenched homophobia and gender-based discrimination that plays out even in the country’s highest legislative chamber: Parliament.

Advocates document repeated patterns of disrespectful taunting and personal insults targeted at male politicians, ranging from damaging insinuations about their sexuality to the deliberate use of feminine pronouns as a weapon of ridicule. These verbal attacks, they argue, are not just petty legislative squabbling—they are clear evidence that anti-LGBTQI+ bias and gendered bigotry remain embedded in the nation’s political culture.

In an interview outlining the community’s ongoing challenges, Johannah-Rae Reyes, project and community outreach officer for CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice, explained that harmful behavior in formal spaces like Parliament and informal digital spaces like social media is merely a reflection of deeper, widespread societal problems.

“Homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia are pervasive across our society, and so are gender-based bullying and sexual harassment,” Reyes explained. “No one is safe, especially LGBTQI+ people, women, and persons who are gender non-conforming. This is why we need to have serious conversations about stigma and discrimination and how these forms of violence are connected. No one should be bullied in their workplace for any reason.”

Reyes emphasized that Parliament, as the heart of the nation’s democratic governance, should be held to a far higher standard of conduct. “Many of our ancestors fought and died so we can now take charge of our own affairs, and we’re seeing too many instances of disrespect and personal attacks from both sides of the House happening in Parliament and on social media. Our leaders need to take leadership more seriously. They need to understand the impact this kind of discourse has on society.”

While the country publicly touts its tolerance, Reyes noted that lived experiences vary dramatically for LGBTQI+ people across different demographics. “Trinidad and Tobago is very diverse and LGBTQI+ people get a range of responses, from tolerance and acceptance to indifference all the way to hate. There is a lot of misinformation and pressure from religious entities to maintain the status quo of harmful gender and sexual norms and exclude people, especially LGBTQI+ people. But every day we meet people who are willing to bridge the gaps and find understanding. There is hope here.”

Access to safety and support, Reyes added, is heavily shaped by intersecting factors of class, geography, and community connection. “It depends on a few other factors—if you’re queer, but you have money and status and live in a city or a town, then there are social protections that would buffer one person from a lot of the challenges that someone who is working class and from a rural area would experience. One person might be working class, but they have the acceptance and support of their family and community—that person would have a more positive experience than someone who does not have support but may be middle or upper class. Obviously, you can imagine someone who doesn’t have family nor community support, is hustling to make ends meet or living on the streets, they would be even more challenged if they are LGBTQI+.”

Intersecting disadvantages create even greater barriers for marginalized subgroups within the LGBTQI+ community, Reyes noted: “Imagine if you are living with a disability or a migrant with no protections or documentation and also LGBTQI+. Being safe for many people depends on a range of social factors and legal protections, as well as recognition of human rights and dignity for all.”

Chinyere Brown, research and programme officer at CAISO, expanded on how overlapping systemic disadvantages compound hardships for LGBTQI+ Trinidadians and Tobagonians, pointing to poverty, disability, migration status, and gaps in existing legal protections as key amplifiers of risk. “Many of these challenges could be avoided if we ensure the rights of all people, including the LGBTQI+ community. Sexual orientation is explicitly excluded in the Equal Opportunity Act, and the courts have recriminalised consensual same-sex relationships. There are things we can do to improve the circumstances of the most marginalised and make a good life even better for those who have more support.”

Brown also outlined widespread failures by public service providers to meet the needs of LGBTQI+ people experiencing violence. Many LGBTQI+ survivors who report harm to law enforcement face additional abuse at the hands of officers, she explained, including forced outings, public ridicule, and harassment from the very people tasked with protecting them. CAISO’s programming recognizes police inaction and mistreatment as a form of violence in itself, as it denies LGBTQI+ people equal protection under the law and obstructs access to justice.

“Too often, clients have also been ill-advised or dismissed when they presented cases of same-sex intimate partner violence at police stations prior to intervention by the programme,” Brown said. “This not only exposes community members to repeated harm but also fosters a sense of impunity for perpetrators of violence.”

Beyond law enforcement, LGBTQI+ people also report dehumanizing treatment when accessing healthcare and other public services, Brown added. “Yes, we have had reports of duty bearers; police, as well as healthcare workers, dropping the ball when it comes to their duty to support any person who needs help. This often happens because of biases, stigma and what they may feel like is their ‘right’ to discriminate. Clients and community members have shared reports to us of being humiliated when attempting to seek needed services. And far too often, the fear of being dismissed or not believed causes LGBTQI+ people to not seek help at all.”

To address these gaps in support, CAISO has launched its Growing Spaces initiative under the broader Wholeness and Justice Programme, which provides direct navigation support to LGBTQI+ community members. The programme offers practical help ranging from assisting with police reports to accompanying clients to medical appointments, and the organization’s legal team also pursues formal complaints against public service providers that fail in their duty to serve all people equally.

“We hope everyone can rise to the occasion and do better, if not their absolute best, in their delivery of services to all people,” Brown said.

A planned mass interment of 56 bodies — 50 infants and six adults — at Cumuto Cemetery last month was the direct outcome of deep budget cuts across Trinidad and Tobago’s state agencies and lax oversight of public funeral disposal contracts, top industry leaders have confirmed.

In a telephone interview with local media on Friday, May 8, David Simpson, managing director of Simpson’s Memorial Ltd. and an executive board member of the Association of Funeral Professionals of Trinidad and Tobago (AFPTT), outlined that austerity measures implemented at hospitals and state-run facilities including the Forensic Science Centre have shrunk allocations for deceased person handling to the barest margin of institutional budgets.

Keith Belgrove, AFPTT president and chief executive officer of Belgroves Funeral Home, echoed Simpson’s concerns in a separate interview with *Sunday Express* the same day. He confirmed that public health institutions consistently award disposal contracts to the lowest bidders, a practice that leaves funeral providers with too little funding to deliver services that uphold basic human dignity for the deceased.

Belgrove emphasized that hospitals and regional health authorities (RHAs) hold a legal obligation to conduct rigorous due diligence before awarding contracts, to verify that selected funeral establishments maintain all required facilities, equipment, trained staff, and operational knowledge mandated by the country’s Burial Grounds Act. Under existing legislation, he explained, each adult must be placed in an individual coffin, with a maximum of two coffins permitted per grave at separate depths. While multiple infants may legally be placed in a single coffin, even mass graves require each set of remains to be prepared and interred with formal, respectful procedures.

The planned mass burial came to light on April 18, when two contractors hired by an Arima-based funeral home arrived at Cumuto Cemetery to dispose of the 56 unclaimed bodies. The cemetery keeper, unaware of the operation and its details, contacted the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), which launched an official investigation immediately after responding to the scene.

Last week, Senior Superintendent Sherma Maynard-Wilson of the TTPS Northern Division confirmed to *Sunday Express* that the investigation into the incident remains active, with law enforcement working to conclude its procedural review and finalize findings. When asked whether criminal charges were expected, Belgrove noted that based on the AFPTT’s preliminary assessment of the case, no violation of the Cemetery Act occurred because the burial was never completed.

Simpson explained that formal protocols for the disposal of unclaimed bodies have long been established, requiring public notification, detailed documentation, and individual or regulation-compliant group burials for all deceased persons. Under standard procedure, when bodies remain unclaimed at hospitals for more than three months, RHAs are required to publish public notices in local media to alert any next of kin. If no one comes forward to claim the remains after this process, the hospital gains legal authority to arrange for disposal.

However, ongoing financial pressure and the race to the bottom created by low-cost competitive bidding have pushed many contracted funeral providers to cut critical corners to stay in business. “When hospitals cut their budget for this service, funeral providers have to cut their budgets too,” Simpson explained, noting that the low-bid tendering process is a long-standing cost-saving measure for RHAs that predates the current national administration.

Per official regulatory requirements, every set of remains should be placed in a regulation coffin, individually registered, and interred following documented procedures. In this April 18 case, Simpson said, funeral staff instead chose to transport all 56 bodies together to the cemetery, hired two casual workers to dig a single unregulated grave, and planned to inter all remains together without following required separation and documentation steps.

Simpson added that different state facilities and RHAs currently operate on inconsistent, unstandardized protocols for funeral contracts: Port of Spain Mortuary follows its own ad-hoc process, while the mortuary at Mt Hope Hospital operates under separate, equally unregulated arrangements. He argued that implementing a uniform national protocol for unclaimed body disposal would resolve much of the systemic inconsistency that enables this kind of incident.

He also lamented broader flaws in the current contracting process, noting that competing funeral homes often never receive follow-up communication about tender outcomes, leaving RHAs free to select providers that agree to complete the work for the lowest possible fee regardless of compliance or quality.

In this specific case, Simpson said the incident only became public because the cemetery keeper was not notified of the burial in advance, as required by regulation. Under proper procedure, the funeral provider is required to pay a $300 fee to the regional corporation, obtain an official invoice, process payment at a bank, present the receipt to the cemetery keeper, and only then receive an assigned plot for interment. Skipping this notification step, which was a direct result of cutting corners to save time and money, triggered the police response that exposed the systemic failures leading to the planned mass burial.

What began as a missing person report filed Monday night for two-year-old Angelo Tobias Plaza has entered its fifth day of intensive search operations, with investigators widening the window of possible disappearance to before the official report date. Sources close to the investigation confirmed to local outlet Sunday Express that law enforcement has obtained both surveillance video evidence related to the case and detailed records of the movements of Angelo’s mother Kalifah Tobias and stepfather Shannon Miller, covering the period from last Sunday through Monday afternoon. Currently, investigators are prioritizing the timeline between Sunday night and Monday morning as the most likely window for the toddler’s disappearance, contradicting initial assumptions that the child went missing only shortly before being reported. On Sunday, Angelo was confirmed to have been staying with relatives in the Goodwood neighborhood of Tobago, and police are working to piece together every detail of his whereabouts to build a clear, accurate chronology of events leading up to his disappearance. As of press time yesterday, both Kalifah Tobias and Shannon Miller remain in police custody, held at two separate law enforcement facilities across Tobago. Superintendent Rodhil Kirk, speaking on behalf of the investigation team, told reporters that detectives are currently in active consultation with senior legal officials to assess whether criminal charges will be filed in connection with the toddler’s disappearance. “This is an active, ongoing investigation, and police must leave no stone unturned to uncover the full truth of what happened. Every step of this process requires careful deliberation, which is why we are working closely with legal authorities to determine whether any charges are appropriate,” Kirk explained. As official search efforts continue, community members in Tobago have grown increasingly frustrated by the low level of public participation in the search. Chandra Jerry, a resident of nearby Pembroke, became visibly emotional while speaking to reporters about the need for broader community action. “This little boy cannot speak for himself, so it is our responsibility as Tobagonians to be his voice. It breaks my heart to come out every day to help search and see so few people show up to support this child,” Jerry said. “No matter where you live on the island, we all have a part to play in bringing him home.” Clint Thomas, a representative of the volunteer Hunters Search and Rescue Team, shared details of the search operations conducted on the fifth day, noting that teams had thoroughly combed all terrain directly behind Angelo’s Goodwood Bay home. Search teams covered nearby hillsides, a local cassava farm, and an uncovered water tank located just outside the property’s perimeter, with no significant breakthroughs reported as of press time. As the search stretches into a new week, Angelo’s relatives have announced plans to hold a public candlelight vigil next week to keep attention on the case and maintain public hope that the toddler will be found alive. Initial reports filed after the disappearance suggested Angelo had wandered toward the nearby ocean after residents heard cries coming from the coastal area, but investigators have since noted that multiple conflicting accounts of the events have emerged, and all statements are being carefully verified. Antonio Plaza, Angelo’s biological father, issued a public appeal this past Friday, begging for any information that could bring answers to the family and help close the painful uncertainty surrounding his son’s disappearance.