The Coali­tion Ad­vo­cat­ing for In­clu­sion of Sex­u­al Ori­en­ta­tion (Caiso) has ex­pressed con­cern that many of the mur­ders of LGBTI+ peo­ple in T&T re­main un­solved.

In a state­ment ex­press­ing out­rage at the mur­der of artist and de­sign­er Marc An­tho­ny Singh, the group not­ed the "alarm­ing­ly low con­vic­tion rates in Trinidad and To­ba­go that al­low crim­i­nals to con­tin­ue their at­tacks on the most vul­ner­a­ble."

Caiso added: "We urge the po­lice to launch a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion and de­liv­er jus­tice for An­tho­ny and all who have been mur­dered. At the same time, we am­pli­fy our calls to the State to in­crease bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions and en­sure that the Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit (GB­VU) is well re­sourced and equipped to pro­vide sup­port and ef­fec­tive ser­vices to vic­tims of all forms of gen­der-based vi­o­lence."

The group said Singh, who was found dead in his El Do­ra­do home on Mon­day night de­served to live in peace and love and not be made a vic­tim to vi­o­lence and ex­pressed con­do­lences to his friends, fam­i­ly, and "all those who had the priv­i­lege of shar­ing in his light."

The state­ment con­tin­ued: "Our di­verse LGBTI+ com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence vi­o­lence and vi­o­la­tions, but we per­sist in our calls and work to end ho­mo­pho­bia and trans­pho­bia, and to en­sure the pro­tec­tion and safe­ty of all mem­bers of our com­mu­ni­ty. We in­sist that LGBTI+ vi­o­lence be un­der­stood as a form of gen­der-based vi­o­lence that must be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.

"While Caiso con­tin­ues to work with vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties, the po­lice, and oth­er na­tion­al stake­hold­ers to ad­dress all forms of gen­der-based vi­o­lence (which we know af­fect women and girls at un­speak­able rates), we must al­so raise the alarm once again on the in­creas­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of LGBTI+ peo­ple, who ex­pe­ri­ence vi­o­lence dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly be­cause of sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der iden­ti­ty.

"We are mind­ful of peo­ple’s in­creased vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, which has height­ened eco­nom­ic hard­ships for many. And in the broad­er land­scape of na­tion­al safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, we are cer­tain­ly aware of the lack of ac­cess to jus­tice of far too many peo­ple in our so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly mi­grants who have lim­it­ed ac­cess to pro­tec­tion on so many lev­els."