Allegations of political discrimination in the awarding of state contracts are to be placed under the remit of the Equal Opportunities Commission. This, according to the newly appointed EOC chair, attorney-at-law Lynette Seebaran-Suite, who feels although we have lived well in a plural society things could degenerate if this diversity were not properly handled. Efforts will also be made to ensure people with HIV/Aids are offered protection.
Q: Mrs Seebaran-Suite, it was with some irony I read the headline on page 11 of a recent Guardian which stated, “Equal Opportunity Commission on sex discrimination; more men complaining.” Are we men losing our cojones... not in the physical sense?
A: (Stifling a smile) I don’t think so at all, Clevon. Not at all, not at all.
Isn’t it unusual that between 2008 and the present day, 270 complaints were received from women and 530 from men, when it’s usually the other way around?
No. It is true the majority of the complaints are from men but it is not to say that they are complaining on the basis of sex; that is not the implication to draw from that because under the... By and large, under this mechanism (EOC), men are complaining about discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, or ethnicity, so that’s where you have the bulk of complaints being received by the commission.
What area has the EOC been receiving the most complaints in?
Ah, let me see (quickly browsing through the EOC’s latest report at her Woodford Street, Port-of-Spain, office Saturday morning). The headings under which we received complaints are discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity, religion, sex, disability, geographical origin or marital status, the largest of which is race or ethnicity.
Can you give an example of discrimination on the basis of race on the job?
The EOC is handling a grievance from a retiring vice-principal who says he should be appointed principal based on his seniority, but a teacher of another ethnicity has been given the post, which he is claiming would affect his terminal benefits.
Would the commission deal with a matter like this solely on the question of seniority or academic qualifications?
Well, both. The question of promoting someone is a multi-factor exercise, so the Teaching Service Commission would have their protocols and practices. After we have satisfied ourselves that the complaint falls within our remit we would call the employer to come in to our conciliation process.
If the commission is found guilty as it were...?
Well our function is, at the end of the day, a conciliation function. So all we can do is ask the employer to sit around the table with us, as we cannot compel them to reach a decision. If one is not reached we then refer the matter to the Equal Opportunity Tribunal, a complementary organisation which is actually a court established under our legislation.
You took this office less than four months ago, but I am certain you must have heard over the years complaints about persons being denied job opportunities because of their home address.
Yes, we do have complaints on the basis of geographical origin. We have a large client base in Tobago and it is the region from which we receive the most complaints. In Tobago, as with all other regions, the largest number of reports deal with employment and there you find, for example, many complaints against the Tobago House of Assembly.
What is the basic nature of these complaints?
That they discriminate against employing people, perhaps because they are not from Tobago...from Trinidad, or somewhere else, and that is the reason they are not employed. And just anecdotally, the sense that I get is that most of these complaints are about employment or promotion, or opportunities for training. There may be certain types of jobs which by their nature would require the applicant to live in a certain geographical area in the sister island.
Mrs Seebaran-Suite, is the question of racial discrimination a real one in T&T?
We have a significant number of complaints where the ground that people are complaining on is race and ethnicity. That is the heading which is most utilised...they’re saying they did not get the job because they are East Indian, or African, or did not get the opportunity to go on the training. In 2013, we had 24 complaints on this basis.
From where you now sit Mrs Seebaran-Suite, do you see this trend, if you can call it that, turning into any serious conflagration in T&T?
(Vigorously nodding in disapproval) No. I don’t think the problem would reach there. You do have a sense that there have been complaints of preferences in terms of a general division of the goods and services of the State, the awarding of contracts and putting people in positions of authority.
You do anecdotally get a sense, not necessarily from our statistics, that there has been that complaint and I daresay because of the nature of our society that is a complaint we have been having from the time we knew ourselves as a nation.
Do you have that status or heading, political discrimination, under the remit of the EOC?
(Running her fingers gently through the left side of her shoulder-length hair) We don’t have as yet, although it is certainly on the cards for us to make a recommendation that one of the grounds that should be included is discrimination on the basis of political affiliation.Even before the advent of my term there had been a recommendation that discrimination on the basis of age and HIV are something that should be looked at, since 2011.
Mrs Seebaran-Suite, is it politically prudent for your organisation to tackle issues under the heading of HIV and LGBT at this time?
Let me put it this way, the UNAIDS did a survey of attitudes of the general population towards persons who are gay and 73 per cent of the respondents—and it was a very sophisticated, well-designed survey—felt that persons should not be discriminated against because they are gay.
Madame chairperson, do you firmly believe in a general sense that there is no basis in fact for the LGBT population to feel they are being discriminated against, all things taken into consideration?
Clevon, Trinidad and Tobago is a fairly liberal society and there is a fair degree of tolerance. There are many persons in high and important positions who are not affected by their status. But there still exists individual instances of persons who are victimised on the basis of sexual orientation and at one of our seminars an individual spoke about an employer who hired a woman, and when it was found out she was gay they fired her.
So even though we have a liberal society there are cases where the not-so enlightened employer would dismiss you when they discover your sexual orientation.
So even though we have matured to a certain extent away from the days when these persons were terrorised by us “straight” persons, we are still seeing a certain degree of homophobia?
Yes, and especially by the strongly religious people.
Are they being unfair to these citizens who pay their taxes and live exemplary lives just like the majority of us?
Yes, I think so and it goes back to the nature of what are human rights, which is not something that the majority should decide on. The individual should decide this and it is the individual who has the right to decide not to be discriminated against.
Finally Mrs Seebaran-Suite, overall, is T&T an overtly discriminating society?
No. I think we have problems associated with being a plural society and we must acknowledge there are special issues from which Trinidad and Tobago suffers, if I can use that term, that there is a potential for terrible problems if that multi-ethnic nature of the population is not properly managed.
The lived experience of the two major races before we achieved political independence at the level of the street, at the level of the village and at the level of personal interaction, we have wonderfully worked out how we live together.
So we good to go?
Yes. We are good to go.