Last year I did something that made me very proud to be a citizen of T&T. I got to speak to the United Nations (UN)–for two minutes–about our country's human rights record.There's a new, six year-old process, which every UN member has now undergone at least once. Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a wraparound peer review of states' records on rights, managed by the Human Rights Council.
It's critical and congratulatory. Government doesn't provide travel or accreditation for civil society advocates to participate in T&T's reviews by international human rights bodies, but international NGOs helped me get to Geneva for UPR and speak.
My focus was sexual rights. The idea that sexuality is something precious and diverse, adults should be able to make decisions about our own bodies, and young people should be equipped with knowledge, skills and self-confidence for a responsible and pleasurable life as a sexual adult, protected from abuse. That sexuality isn't just something to protect from violation, but a profound part of our humanity we all ought to be able to fulfill with dignity. And that Government has a role to ensure both.
I was a little ashamed that only two domestic NGOs (Family Planning Association and Caiso) participated in T&T's UPR review (it's a simple matter of e-mailing a document following guidelines on the UN Web site). This says much more education and ownership of human rights need to happen locally. Plantation, colony and tribe are so woven through our lives it's been hard for a culture of human rights to replace the urge to strive for that little edge of power or status over others, for ourselves, or our group.
We see human rights as something esoteric and distant from our lives, the stuff of technocrats, idealists and activists, not as fundamental values that have practical application in our everyday lives.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members