Trinidad and To­ba­go has made his­to­ry as the first Caribbean na­tion to launch a Na­tion­al Ac­tion Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace, and Se­cu­ri­ty (WPS), with a fo­cus on tack­ling gun and gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence.

Ac­cord­ing to the Gen­der and Child Af­fairs de­part­ment in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, “Trinidad and To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­ences vi­o­lent crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly homi­cides, dri­ven by gun-re­lat­ed and gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence. This af­fects all as­pects of dai­ly life, in­clud­ing so­cial sta­bil­i­ty, which dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly im­pacts vul­ner­a­ble groups, in­clud­ing women and youth.”

It went fur­ther in say­ing de­spite their re­silience and lead­er­ship in com­mu­ni­ties, women have been large­ly ex­clud­ed from de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es re­lat­ed to crime pre­ven­tion and se­cu­ri­ty.