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With the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion re­port­ing a rise in the glob­al dis­abil­i­ty pop­u­la­tion, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Ali­cia Lalite-Eti­enne is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to en­act long-await­ed leg­is­la­tion that gives re­al pro­tec­tion and eq­ui­ty to peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties.

Lalite-Eti­enne, who is vi­su­al­ly im­paired, brought a pri­vate mem­bers’ mo­tion to the Up­per House yes­ter­day, call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ta­ble a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al strate­gic plan with a leg­isla­tive frame­work with­in 12 months.

Al­though T&T is a sig­na­to­ry to sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al treaties, in­clud­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions’ Con­ven­tion on the Rights of Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties (CR­PD), she said these com­mit­ments re­main on­ly pol­i­cy with­out do­mes­tic law to en­force them.