Trinidad and To­ba­go is at a cross­roads. Gays, les­bians, bi­sex­u­als and trans­gen­der peo­ple are go­ing pub­lic and de­mand­ing the same hu­man rights as every oth­er per­son in this coun­try. Young peo­ple are hav­ing sex in schools. Every­where, the sex­u­al land­scape is chang­ing. Is this a cri­sis? Or is this an op­por­tu­ni­ty? We at the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FPATT) see these events as a tremen­dous op­por­tu­ni­ty for this coun­try to make strides in the pro­vi­sion of sex­u­al rights for its cit­i­zens, to lift the pall of stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion and to ful­fil the promise of the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights: "All hu­man be­ings are born free and equal in dig­ni­ty and hu­man rights." Last year FPATT adopt­ed our par­ent body's de­c­la­ra­tion of sex­u­al rights and the core con­cept that sex­u­al rights are hu­man rights. The In­ter­na­tion­al Planned Par­ent­hood Fed­er­a­tion's De­c­la­ra­tion is a com­pre­hen­sive doc­u­ment that out­lines the rights of all hu­man be­ings to ful­fill­ing and plea­sur­able sex­u­al lives, to sex­u­al and re­pro­duc­tive health ser­vices and in­for­ma­tion, to safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty from per­se­cu­tion and at­tack.

The doc­u­ment is avail­able on the IPPF web­site and I en­cour­age you to read it to get a fuller sense of its gist and pro­vi­sions.

This de­c­la­ra­tion has been at the core of our vi­sion at FPATT since we adopt­ed it last year and it has helped to so­lid­i­fy our pur­pose and di­rec­tion as one of the pre­mier providers of SRH ser­vices and ed­u­ca­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. A year af­ter its adop­tion, we are very pleased to say we have in­creased our pro­vi­sion of ser­vices, both con­tra­cep­tive and non-con­tra­cep­tive, to 140,615 in to­tal for 2010. Clients had 139,822 vis­its in all, an in­crease of 65,537 over the pre­vi­ous year. How­ev­er, FPATT and its part­ner or­gan­i­sa­tions don't work in a vac­u­um. We work in a re­al coun­try, with re­al peo­ple, some of whom see the chang­ing land­scape as a cri­sis. We who see it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty and must raise our voic­es in sup­port of our po­si­tion. For ex­am­ple, ear­ly this year the ques­tion of same-sex mar­riage was raised in a par­lia­men­tary de­bate. As it turned out, the most vo­cal GLBT group to re­spond, the Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for the In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (CAISO), said same sex mar­riage was NOT some­thing on which the GLBT com­mu­ni­ty want­ed im­me­di­ate dis­cus­sion. In­stead, CAISO said, the GLBT com­mu­ni­ty wants a guar­an­tee of free­dom from the ha­rass­ment and at­tacks, bul­ly­ing in schools, po­lice in­tim­i­da­tion and vic­tim­i­sa­tion, and home­less­ness and un­der­em­ploy­ment that come as a re­sult of stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion.

FPATT sees this mo­ment in our coun­try's his­to­ry as the ide­al time to cor­rect a se­ri­ous omis­sion in the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act, which cur­rent­ly ex­cludes GLBT sta­tus as a ba­sis for its pro­tec­tions. The treat­ment of this mar­gin­alised group is in­deed a hu­man rights is­sue. On­ly a week ago the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil adopt­ed a res­o­lu­tion to car­ry out a study de­tail­ing "dis­crim­i­na­to­ry laws and prac­tices and acts of vi­o­lence against in­di­vid­u­als based on their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty" and to con­sid­er "how in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights law can be used to end vi­o­lence and re­lat­ed hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions based on sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty." We must en­sure that our leg­isla­tive en­vi­ron­ment helps, not hin­ders, in pro­tect­ing the hu­man rights of all our peo­ple. In this con­text we not­ed the re­cent call for the crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of the reck­less and wil­ful spread of HIV. The call came from a sit­ting High Court Jus­tice and prompt­ed the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to say the is­sue would be re­vis­it­ed. Leg­is­la­tion had pre­vi­ous­ly been in­tro­duced in the Sen­ate years ago but had been al­lowed to lapse. FPATT un­equiv­o­cal­ly urges the hon­or­able AG in re­vis­it­ing this piece of leg­is­la­tion to hew close­ly to the UN­AIDS guide­lines on this, guide­lines that give very spe­cif­ic cir­cum­stances where the in­fec­tion of some­one with HIV could be con­sid­ered "wil­ful"-and we were very pleased to note the jus­tice's sub­se­quent re­marks to this ef­fect.

In our coun­try so many peo­ple are still not test­ed and there­fore do not know their sta­tus; and there is still so much stig­ma and dis­crim­i­na­tion around HIV and AIDS that even some peo­ple who know their sta­tus are re­luc­tant to dis­close it for fear of vic­tim­i­sa­tion or at­tack. Peo­ple liv­ing with HIV and AIDS are peo­ple, full stop. We ought to en­cour­age them to pro­tect them­selves and their part­ners from in­fec­tion, to seek treat­ment and care, to fight for their hu­man rights to work, hous­ing, fam­i­ly and dig­ni­ty. Laws that ham­per these things should not be passed. Hon­or­able AG, FPATT says crim­i­nalise hate not HIV. Just this month FPATT was in­clud­ed in a T&T del­e­ga­tion to the High Lev­el Meet­ing (HLM) on HIV and AIDS. Among the res­o­lu­tions adopt­ed at the HLM was a call to im­prove young peo­ple's ac­cess to SRH ser­vices and ed­u­ca­tion. Too many chil­dren are vic­tims of sex­u­al vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing in­cest, and par­tic­i­pate in ear­ly sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty to the detri­ment of their health and wel­fare. We are will­ing to work with ed­u­ca­tors, par­ents, and youth them­selves to de­vel­op this and put it in place. An­oth­er res­o­lu­tion com­ing from the HLM said, in part, that "women and girls are still the most af­fect­ed by the epi­dem­ic.

In Oc­to­ber of this year, Trinidad and To­ba­go will be called to ac­count on its pro­tec­tion of hu­man rights at the 12th ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions' Hu­man Rights Coun­cil's Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view. What will we have to say for our­selves? Did we, as a na­tion, try our very best to en­sure that all our peo­ple had full hu­man rights? One of our main spon­sors is the Gov­ern­ment. As the Hon­or­able Min­is­ter of Health is with us to­day I wish to re­it­er­ate our spe­cial thanks for the con­tin­ued sup­port. How­ev­er, Madam Min­is­ter, I al­so want to ask you to in­ter­vene on our be­half. We have re­ceived an an­nu­al Gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion of $1 mil­lion since 1992 and we would very much ap­pre­ci­ate an in­crease in this amount. A mil­lion dol­lars is not what it used to be. We in­vite you to sit with us to dis­cuss this sub­ven­tion and how we can fur­ther col­lab­o­rate in the pro­vi­sion of ser­vices and ed­u­ca­tion to our pop­u­la­tion. As you know, Madam Min­is­ter, FPATT is rep­re­sent­ed on the Sex­u­al and Re­pro­duc­tive Health Tech­ni­cal Work­ing Com­mit­tee, head­ed by your Pop­u­la­tion Pro­gramme Unit.

In this con­text, FPATT can pledge sup­port in as­sist­ing your min­istry in at least three ways:

•The de­sign and im­ple­men­ta­tion of youth clin­ics based on our suc­cess­ful mod­el De Liv­ing Room;

• train­ing nurs­ing per­son­nel in SRH ser­vices; and,

• the shar­ing of pro­to­cols for de­liv­ery of SRH ser­vices.

In the past year we at FPATT strength­ened our pro­grammes for ado­les­cents, pro­vid­ing 15,152 con­tra­cep­tive ser­vices, and 6,518 oth­er ser­vices, such as HIV and oth­er STI test­ing, gy­nae­co­log­i­cal ser­vices and spe­cialised coun­selling to clients aged 14-25. Madam Min­is­ter, we know that you are sen­si­tive to our cause. We would like the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss with you how we could con­tribute to mak­ing sure all cit­i­zens have ac­cess to the best pos­si­ble SRH ser­vices and ed­u­ca­tion our coun­try can pro­vide. Spe­cial thanks for a suc­cess­ful year go to our en­ter­pris­ing team: Mem­bers of our board of di­rec­tors, YAM mem­bers, staff, and vol­un­teers and their fear­less leader, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Dona da Cos­ta Mar­tinez. We al­so recog­nise the ster­ling con­tri­bu­tion of our pres­i­dent Dr Jacque­line Sharpe, who has been do­ing a great job at the helm of the IPPF. We are at this mo­ment en­gag­ing in a re­view of our cor­po­rate strate­gic di­rec­tion. In this our 55th year of op­er­a­tion, we have en­gaged con­sul­tants to de­vel­op a plan for the next three years. FPATT and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions com­pete for the same dwin­dling funds.

At the same time we have felt the ef­fects of a dearth of med­ical per­son­nel, from doc­tors and nurs­es to med­ical tech­ni­cians across the board. Yet we still have to ramp up our out­put from year-to- year and be re­spon­sive to changes in the en­vi­ron­ment and client needs. We must de­vel­op a ro­bust hu­man re­source plan to treat with these and oth­er chal­lenges. I have no doubt we can do it, with your con­tin­ued sup­port. We look for­ward to an­oth­er suc­cess­ful year in ser­vice to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.