Protecting our human rights

The UDHR was the precursor to many United Nations conventions on specific areas of human rights. In our column published on October 24, we noted that TT has signed and ratified six of these conventions, three of which are the conventions on the rights of people with disabilities, on eliminating all forms of racial discrimination, and on eliminating discrimination against women. These three are of relevance to the work of the Equal Opportunity Commission as we are empowered by legislation to receive, investigate and, as far as possible, conciliate complaints by people who have suffered discrimination on the ground of their race, their ethnicity, their sex or their disability, as well as on three other grounds (their religion, their marital status and their origin).

Vital complaint provisions in act

The Equal Opportunity Act protects citizens who have been discriminated against and seeks to promote equality of opportunity and treatment for all. One of the functions of the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) in implementing the act is to receive, investigate and conciliate complaints of discrimination