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Trinidad and Tobago

CEDAW Committee’s approach towards LBTI people in Trinidad and Tobago has been categorised as No Recognition of LBTI Rights because the Committee did not provide any SOCIESC-specific recommendations for the State party and asked no LBTI-specific questions in the List of Issues.

Background Methodology Key findings

Lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LBTI) people face significant challenges legally and socially in Trinidad and Tobago. In April 2018, the High Court of Justice ruled that the laws – sections 13 (buggery) and 16 (serious indecency) of the Sexual Offenses Act – criminalising same-sex intimacy between consenting adults are unconstitutional. There is no legal recognition of same-sex unions or marriages in Trinidad and Tobago. There is no legal recognition of transgender and intersex people and no laws protecting LBTI people from discrimination, violence, stigma and hate crimes.

The last State party report was submitted in 2015 and contained no LBTI specific information.

The CEDAW Committee provided no SOGIESC-focused observations to Trinidad and Tobago at the 64th Session. There were no LBTI-inclusive questions in 2015 or in the recent pre-sessional working group in March 2023.

Other general recommendations by the Committee in 2015 that may apply to LBTI people included:

(a) to provide age-appropriate education and access to comprehensive SRHR;

(b) to legalise abortion in cases of rape, incest, and severe foetal impairment and to decriminalise abortion in all other cases;

(c) to continue to scale up the provision of free antiretroviral treatment to all women;

(d) to intensify efforts to address the root causes of trafficking in women and girls and to ensure the rehabilitation and social integration of victims, including by providing them with legal, medical and psychosocial assistance, and to bolster awareness-raising programmes.