2.1 Aims and design

The first study, conducted in 2017 under the auspices of the IMPACT Justice Project, a regional access-to-justice initiative funded by the Government of Canada and administered through the University of the West Indies, examined the treatment of persons with disabilities who come into contact with the justice system in the Eastern Caribbean (Haynes Reference Haynes2017). It was a qualitative, interview-based study involving 109 stakeholders across seven jurisdictions, namely Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines. Participation was highest in Grenada (twenty-two interviewees) and lowest in Montserrat (eleven), with Antigua and Barbuda contributing twenty participants, Dominica fifteen and the remaining jurisdictions between thirteen and fourteen each. The participants represented a broad cross-section of actors in the justice system, including social, child and probation officers and allied professionals (seventeen), police officers (twelve), prosecutors and defence attorneys (ten each), non-governmental and disability rights representatives (ten), education officers (eight), judges (seven), prison and corrections officers and medical and mental health professionals (five each) and magistrates and Attorneys General (four each).

The second study, conducted in 2020, again under the auspices of the IMPACT Justice Project, a regional access-to-justice initiative funded by the Government of Canada and administered through the University of the West Indies, sought to broaden and update the 2017 work by identifying the specific barriers affecting the quality of life of persons with disabilities across the wider region (Haynes Reference Haynes2020). It employed a structured, paper-based survey questionnaire, completed by 321 respondents across twelve Caribbean countries between June and November 2020. The questionnaire examined the types and prevalence of disabilities; experiences of discrimination; awareness and perceptions of the CRPD; the adequacy of domestic legal frameworks; the existence of enabling environments for persons with disabilities; access to justice; experiences of persons with disabilities during contact with the justice system; support for young persons with disabilities; and the rehabilitation of offenders with disabilities. Trinidad and Tobago contributed the largest national sample (fifty-nine), followed by Belize and Jamaica (thirty-eight each), Guyana (thirty-seven), St Kitts and Nevis (thirty-three), St Vincent and the Grenadines (thirty-two) and Grenada (thirty). The smaller samples comprised Dominica (fifteen), St Lucia (fourteen), Barbados (eleven) and Antigua and Barbuda and Montserrat (seven each).

The third study, conducted in 2021 and 2022 for the World Bank through the Government of St Vincent and the Grenadines under the Human Services Delivery Project, was a mixed-methods study designed to inform the drafting of that country’s disability legislation (Haynes Reference Haynes2022). It comprised thirty-one individual interviews and a seventeen-person group consultation held in Bequia, amounting to forty-eight directly consulted stakeholders, together with a national consultation held on 3 December 2021 that was organised into four thematic working groups addressing, respectively, health, wellness, sport and culture; the legal and institutional framework and public affairs; access and inclusion; and education and empowerment. In total, the consultation process engaged approximately 350 respondents, a substantial proportion of whom were persons with disabilities and representatives of disability-led organisations. Government officials and civil servants comprised the largest single category, drawn from the ministries of education, transport, health, tourism and national mobilisation, alongside civil society and non-governmental representatives, education professionals, transport and infrastructure specialists and individual representatives of the health and justice sectors.

The fourth study, also conducted in 2022 and funded by the Government of Barbados, through the University of Birmingham, was undertaken to support the development of that country’s disability legislation, and provides the consultative foundation for the assessment of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2025 that runs through Section 4 (the author’s role in the legislative process is set out in the Comprehensive Report of the National Advisory Committee to Guide to the Establishment of a Commission for Improving the Lives of Persons with Disabilities, National Advisory Committee for Improving the Lives of Persons with Disabilities 2023). It comprised a workshop and a series of focus groups with approximately sixty representatives drawn from the disability community, the ministry responsible for persons with disabilities, disabled persons’ organisations and the Barbados Law Reform Commission, the purpose of which was to identify the priorities and lived concerns that the legislation would need to address, and to validate the draft Bill. This study is distinctive among the four in that it was both diagnostic and deliberative. It informed the content of the draft and then tested that draft against the community it was intended to serve.

4.1 The definition of disability

The Caribbean jurisdictions surveyed display considerable variation in their conceptual approach to disability. It is tempting to characterise this variation as a straightforward divide between a progressive social model and an outdated medical model (Huggins Reference Huggins2009). That characterisation, however, is too simplistic, and risks obscuring the question that matters most for antidiscrimination law, which is not the vocabulary in which disability is defined but the breadth of protection that the definition secures. As the Committee has observed in General Comment No 6, disability-inclusive antidiscrimination law ‘seeks to outlaw and prevent a discriminatory act rather than target a defined protected group’, such that ‘a broad impairment-related definition of disability is in line with the Convention’ (CRPD Committee Reference Committee2018, para. 73(b)). On this view, a definition framed in impairment-related terms is not objectionable in itself, as what matters is whether the legislation also protects against discrimination on the basis of presumed, past or future disability and association, and whether it avoids importing, into the very definition of disability, an additional evidentiary hurdle requiring claimants to prove the existence of social barriers before they may even bring a claim.

The Bahamas adopts the most explicitly social-model formulation. Under section 2 of The Bahamas’ Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities) Act 2014, ‘persons with disabilities’ are defined as ‘persons with a long-term disability including physical, mental, intellectual, developmental or sensory impairments and other health related illnesses, which in interaction with various barriers may hinder full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others’. This formulation is consistent with the language of Article 1 of the CRPD. Belize’s 2024 Act, in section 2, defines a ‘person with a disability’ as one who ‘has a long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment that makes it more difficult for that person to do certain activities and participate fully and effectively in society on an equal basis with any other person without a disability’. While this acknowledges participation barriers, it locates the difficulty in the individual rather than in the interaction with societal barriers. The remaining jurisdictions adopt impairment-focused definitions; for example, section 2 of Antigua and Barbuda’s Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017, having defined a ‘person with a disability’ by reference to a long-term impairment with an adverse effect on participation, then excludes persons with tendencies toward, among other things, fire-setting, theft and substance addiction. Section 3 of Trinidad and Tobago’s Equal Opportunity Act offers the most medicalised formulation, defining disability by reference to the loss or malfunction of bodily functions and parts.

Barbados’s 2025 Act adopts a notably composite approach consistent with General Comment No 6. The Act defines ‘person with a disability’, in section 2, as ‘a person with an impairment, including physical, mental, intellectual, developmental or sensory impairments, which in interaction with various barriers may hinder full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others’, a formulation that is consistent with the CRPD and The Bahamas’ legislation.

4.2 Education

The legislation in each of the jurisdictions demonstrates a strong, if imperfect, commitment to the educational advancement of persons with disabilities, though their implementation mechanisms differ. Sections 23 to 26 of Belize’s Act, for example, provide detailed guidance on education, including a commitment to non-discrimination, ‘special arrangements’ for persons with intellectual impairments and ‘reasonable and universal access’ to educational services. Provision is also made for various accommodations in the context of examinations, including extra time, coloured stickers for dyslexic students, readers, scribes, alternative communication formats, recording devices, reduced examination-room capacity, sign language interpreters and even supervised home-based examinations (Disabilities Act 2024 (Belize), s.25). Section 26 further requires the Ministry of Education to recruit additional teachers, provide special-education training, permit differentiated instruction and supply auxiliary aids and services. Comparable provisions appear in the legislation of Antigua and Barbuda (Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017, ss.17–18), The Bahamas (Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities) Act 2014, ss.30–33), Guyana (Persons with Disabilities Act 2010, s.14) and Jamaica (Disabilities Act 2014, ss.26–27), the last of which provides for the accessibility of examination venues and procedures (Disabilities Act 2014 (Jamaica), s.27). By contrast, Trinidad and Tobago’s legislation provides the most minimal approach to education, with section 15 simply prohibiting discrimination against students with disabilities, and section 18A permitting educational institutions to refuse admission where providing the necessary services would impose ‘unjustifiable hardship’.

Barbados’s 2025 Act, in Part V, provides one of the most far-reaching approaches to education in the region. Section 27 guarantees the right to quality education on the basis of equal opportunity; section 28 obliges the minister responsible for education to develop teacher-training programmes in special education and to make special education a compulsory component of the teachers’ curriculum; and section 29 imposes on every educational institution a duty to provide reasonable physical access and to ensure that students with disabilities are not disadvantaged.

The Barbados legislation goes beyond most of the regional legislation in two respects. First, section 30 imposes a positive duty to promote and facilitate the integration of students with disabilities into mainstream schools, so far as reasonably practicable. Second, section 31 mandates a system of Individualised Education Plans tailored to the specific learning needs of students with disabilities, a mechanism absent from the other statutes surveyed. Section 32 enumerates an extensive suite of assessment accommodations, including extra time, the use of coloured stickers so that dyslexic students are not penalised for spelling and syntax, the assignment of readers, scribes and sign language interpreters, alternative communication formats and supervised home-based examinations, in a similar vein to Belize’s legislation.

4.3 Employment

Each of the regional statutes endeavours to create an enabling environment in which persons with disabilities may achieve economic empowerment. Belize’s legislation prohibits discrimination in recruitment, promotion, equal opportunities, equal remuneration and continuance of employment (Disabilities Act 2024 (Belize), s.27), and requires employers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’, including physical workplace modifications, alternative work locations and the provision of special equipment (s.27(2)). Section 28 mandates redeployment, where employees with disabilities can no longer perform their original duties, to positions commensurate with their current skills without loss of remuneration; and, uniquely, section 29 allows employers to apply for ‘fiscal incentives’ for employing persons with disabilities. The prohibition of discrimination and protection in the context of redeployment also appear in Antigua and Barbuda’s legislation (Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017, ss.20–21), while The Bahamas has introduced the region’s only mandatory hiring quota. Under section 14 of that legislation, ‘an employer having more than one hundred employees must employ not less than one percent of qualified persons with disabilities’. Guyana, meanwhile, takes a notably punitive approach, with fines for non-compliance with the non-discrimination duty and for failures in record-keeping (Persons with Disabilities Act 2010 (Guyana), ss.8–9). Jamaica’s and Trinidad and Tobago’s legislation are less detailed, focusing primarily on non-discrimination (Equal Opportunity Act 2000 (Trinidad and Tobago), s.9), although section 29 of Jamaica’s Act provides for redeployment in terms similar to Antigua and Barbuda’s.

Barbados’s 2025 Act, in Part VI (ss.35–46), advances the regional position in several discrete ways. Section 35 prohibits discrimination across the full range of employment matters and, importantly, provides that where a claim is filed, the burden lies on the employer to establish the reasons for any denial of employment, and a failure to provide satisfactory reasons constitutes prima facie discrimination (s.35(10)–(11)). Sections 36 and 37 codify the duty of reasonable accommodation, with an enumerated, non-exhaustive list of measures ranging from physical modification of the worksite to flexible working hours and the modification of testing procedures. Rather than adopt a private-sector numerical quota of the kind in The Bahamas, Barbados imposes, by section 42, a public-sector hiring duty, providing that ‘every Ministry shall employ qualified persons with disabilities’. A private-sector quota was proposed by some stakeholders during the Barbadian reform process and included in an initial draft, but was ultimately omitted due to concerns that a fixed quota might encourage a minimalist culture of compliance, in which employers cease their efforts once the threshold is met (Blunt Reference Blunt2025). Barbados’s model thus pairs a public-sector hiring duty with a robust, burden-shifting non-discrimination regime, an approach that is arguably the most protective in the region.

The justiciability of employment rights has been asserted in the Committee’s jurisprudence under Article 27. In V.F.C. v. Spain,Footnote ¹ the Committee found a violation of Article 27 where a police officer who acquired a disability was subjected to mandatory retirement without any consideration of reasonable accommodation for modified duties. The Committee considered that the duty of reasonable accommodation in the employment context is engaged not only at the point of recruitment, but throughout the employment relationship, including redeployment, a principle reflected in the redeployment provisions of the Barbadian (s.46), Belizean and Antiguan statutes.

4.4 Health care

The provisions on health care in regional legislation vary significantly. While Trinidad and Tobago’s legislation notably lacks explicit health-care provisions, the other jurisdictions generally provide for the right to health care equal to the standard afforded to persons without a disability (Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017 (Antigua and Barbuda), s.22; Disabilities Act 2024 (Belize), s.30), for access to services provided by trained personnel (Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities) Act 2014 (The Bahamas), s.18) and for early diagnosis and rehabilitation (Persons with Disabilities Act 2010 (Guyana), s.20). With respect to sexual and reproductive health, section 35 of Jamaica’s legislation adopts a notably rights-based approach, mandating the provision of a high standard of sexual and reproductive health services, having regard to patients’ free and informed consent, although the content of ‘high quality’ care is not stipulated. Uniquely, section 33 of Belize’s legislation, section 23 of Antigua and Barbuda’s and section 41 of Jamaica’s prohibit discrimination in access to insurance, while permitting reasonable cost differentials based on actuarial considerations.

Barbados’s 2025 Act, in Part VII (ss.47–52), provides a more comprehensive approach to health care than most of its counterparts. Section 47 guarantees access to the same range and standard of affordable health care as is available to persons without disabilities, expressly including sexual and reproductive health services, and, importantly, conditions the provision of health care on ‘the free and informed consent of the person with the disability’ (s.47(2)(b)). This provision gives statutory effect to the autonomy principle that underlies the Committee’s reading of legal capacity under Article 12 of the Convention (CRPD Committee 2014a, paras 8, 41–42). Section 48 addresses the physical accessibility of facilities and the training of personnel; section 49 criminalises neglect and ill-treatment by caregivers, with a penalty of $50,000 or five years’ imprisonment; and section 51 prohibits discrimination in respect of insurance, reversing the burden of proof so that the insurer must justify any denial of coverage. Meanwhile, section 52, like the equivalent Bahamian provision, makes express provision for service animals. The pairing of an autonomy-based consent requirement with a burden-shifting insurance provision and the criminalisation of neglect by caregivers places the Barbadian health-care regime at the forefront of regional practice.

The Committee’s reasonable-accommodation jurisprudence is instructive here. In H.M. v. Sweden,Footnote ² the Committee found that the refusal of planning permission for a hydrotherapy pool essential to the author’s health violated the reasonable-accommodation obligation, observing that the necessary departure from the development plan ‘would not impose a disproportionate or undue burden’ on the state (2012, para. 8.5). In other words, the duty of reasonable accommodation extends into the health-care domain and requires an individualised assessment of proportionality.

4.5 Access and inclusion

The disability legislation across the region demonstrates varying approaches to accessibility and inclusion, with implementation timelines ranging from six months to several years, and enforcement mechanisms ranging from civil penalties to criminal sanctions. Suffice it to say, it is instructive to recall the Committee’s distinction between accessibility and reasonable accommodation. Accessibility under Article 9 is an ex ante duty owed to groups, requiring states to remove barriers in advance and unconditionally, whereas reasonable accommodation is an ex nunc duty owed to individuals and qualified by proportionality considerations (CRPD Committee Reference Committee2014b, paras 25–26).Footnote ³ In this connection, much of the regional legislation frames accessibility as an aspiration, subject to indicative timelines, rather than as an immediate and unconditional obligation.

Antigua and Barbuda sets the most ambitious timeline, requiring existing public premises to be made accessible within six months (Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017, s.26), while Belize mandates a twelve-month period for compliance (Disabilities Act 2024, s.34(2)), with fines of up to $5,000 for violations (s.34(7)). The Bahamas adopts a more measured two-year period for making buildings accessible (Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities) Act 2014, s.21) and uniquely enables persons with disabilities to be accompanied by service animals in public places without paying an additional fee (s.23). Jamaica requires both the retrofitting of existing premises (Disabilities Act 2014, s.36) and compliance by new construction with accessibility-related building requirements (s.37). Trinidad and Tobago’s provisions are limited to the prohibition of discrimination in access to public premises and private accommodation (Equal Opportunity Act 2000, ss.17–18), while Guyana provides for barrier-free access to public and private accommodation (Persons with Disabilities Act 2010, s.28) and stipulates that, absent a genuine safety concern, persons with disabilities should not be denied access to public premises (s.29).

Barbados’s 2025 Act, across Part IX (ss.56–61) and Part X (ss.62–66), provides one of the most comprehensive accessibility regimes in the region. Section 62 guarantees equal access to public facilities, with a penalty of $50,000 for contravention; section 63 requires existing public buildings to be altered, in accordance with the Barbados National Building Code, within three years; and section 64 obliges the responsible ministry to review and publish updated building-code guidelines within one year. Two features of Barbados’s 2025 Act go further than the regional norm. First, section 56(2) mandates that at least 10 per cent of houses constructed in every government housing project be designed to accommodate persons with disabilities fully, a positive accessibility quota in the housing sphere that is absent from the other statutes. Second, section 66 guarantees access to public transport on equal terms, including a prohibition on charging higher fares to persons with disabilities (s.66(4)), a guarantee that several of the other statutes lack. Read with the service-animal provision in section 52, the Barbadian accessibility regime is among the most far-reaching in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

4.6 Social protection

There are stark differences between the jurisdictions in the provision of social protection, with several offering comprehensive approaches while others provide minimal or no protection. Belize arguably provides the most detailed regime, mandating lifelong protection and social support, including the continuation of welfare after the death of parents or caregivers (Disabilities Act 2024 (Belize), s.22(2)), and allowing non-governmental organisations to apply for fiscal incentives for providing institutional care (ss.22(3)–(4)). Such provisions are necessary to address the needs of persons with severe disabilities, who are often heavily dependent on others for basic daily living (s.22(1)). The Bahamas and Guyana provide virtually identical social protection under section 24 of their respective statutes, mandating auxiliary social services such as assistance with prosthetic devices, specialised training, counselling, family-care and substitute family-care services, after-care and day care for children with disabilities. By contrast, section 25 of Antigua and Barbuda’s legislation provides only minimal social protection, requiring caregivers, rather than the state directly, to ensure that persons with disabilities receive adequate food, clothing and medical attention. Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago lack any express social-protection provisions, a significant gap in their legislation.

Barbados’s 2025 Act, in Part VIII (ss.53–55) and Part XIV (ss.80–82), advances regional practice in two notable respects. Section 53 provides a comprehensive suite of auxiliary social services, comparable to the Bahamian and Guyanese provisions, and section 54 adds dedicated support for caregivers, including counselling, training, respite and financial advice. Beyond this, two features are without regional parallels. First, section 55 addresses national emergencies directly, requiring the proactive removal of persons with disabilities from emergency situations, the provision of accessible accommodation and the dissemination of disaster information in accessible formats, while section 55(2) goes further still, mandating that the rights, needs and interests of persons with disabilities be accounted for in the implementation of climate change policy. Second, sections 80 to 82 establish a permanent National Development Fund for Persons with Disabilities, administered by a Board of Trustees and resourced through investment income, donations and parliamentary appropriation. It is submitted that the statutory mainstreaming of disability into climate change policy, and the establishment of a dedicated and permanent fund to support people with disabilities and related projects, are innovations of particular significance for a region in which, as the empirical findings below confirm, both disaster vulnerability and chronic under-resourcing are acute.

4.7 Participation in public affairs

Regional legislation on political and civic engagement also demonstrates differing commitments to democratic inclusion. Jamaica provides one of the most comprehensive legislative approaches in this regard. Under section 32 of its Act, persons with disabilities cannot be denied the opportunity to participate in programmes or activities relating to political office and are guaranteed both voting rights and opportunities for election, while section 33 extends participation rights to civil society organisations. Guyana’s legislation, under sections 32 and 33, requires barrier-free polling stations and mandates assistance to vote by secret ballot, and also provides for reasonable access to sports and recreational facilities (Persons with Disabilities Act 2010, s.25). The Bahamas has enacted similar provisions, mandating accessible sports and recreational facilities (Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities) Act 2014, s.25) and requiring assistance in the exercise of the right to vote (s.26). By contrast, the legislation of Belize, Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago contains no explicit provision for political participation, voting accessibility or civic engagement.

Barbados’s 2025 Act, in Part XII (ss.68–72) and Part XIII (ss.73–75), advances regional disability practice. Section 68 facilitates the right to vote, including entitlement to assistance by a person of the voter’s choice and an offence of hindering a voter with a disability; section 69 guarantees the opportunity to participate in the political process, including the right to be elected, and requires, so far as reasonably practicable, the use of colour coding, symbols and related accessible formats (s.69(2)); and section 70 requires every polling place to be accessible. The Act goes further than its counterparts by additionally mandating accessible broadcast media, requiring sign-language insets, closed captioning or subtitles in at least one daily newscast and in coverage of national events (s.73), and by requiring public bodies to provide information in formats compliant with web-content accessibility guidelines (s.74).

The Committee’s jurisprudence on political participation reinforces the importance of explicit provisions. In Bujdosó v. Hungary,Footnote ⁴ the Committee held that the automatic removal of persons with intellectual disabilities from the electoral register on the basis of guardianship status violated Article 29, read with Article 12, stressing that ‘an exclusion of the right to vote on the basis of a perceived or actual psychosocial or intellectual disability, including a restriction pursuant to an individualized assessment, constitutes discrimination on the basis of disability’ (2013, para. 9.4). In Given v. Australia,Footnote ⁵ the Committee found that the failure to provide an accessible electronic voting option for a person with cerebral palsy violated the right to participate in political life on an equal basis with others. These decisions establish that the accommodations mandated by the Barbadian and Jamaican statutes are integral to the equal enjoyment of political rights.

4.8 Institutional frameworks

Several jurisdictions have established commissions or councils on the rights of persons with disabilities. Belize’s legislation establishes a National Commission of ten members, drawn from government and civil society, whose functions include policy oversight, monitoring of compliance with the CRPD, employment assistance, annual reporting and registration (Disabilities Act 2024, ss.3–12, esp. s.11). The Bahamas creates a fifteen-member Commission with extensive regulatory powers (Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities) Act 2014, ss.6, 9–10), while Guyana establishes a twelve-member Commission serving as a national focal point with monitoring and enforcement powers (Persons with Disabilities Act 2010, ss.5–6). Antigua and Barbuda (Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017, ss.4–5) and Jamaica (Disabilities Act 2014, ss.5–6) establish more limited ‘Council’ structures, while Trinidad and Tobago relies on a generic Equal Opportunity Commission (Equal Opportunity Act 2000, s.26) rather than a disability-specific body. As to adjudication, Belize (Disabilities Act 2024, s.35 and Schedule), Trinidad and Tobago (Equal Opportunity Act 2000, ss.41–52), Antigua and Barbuda (Disabilities and Equal Opportunities Act 2017, s.41) and Jamaica (Disabilities Act 2014, ss.15, 19) have established disability-specific tribunals of varying sophistication, while The Bahamas and Guyana rely on the ordinary courts and their respective Commissions.

Barbados’s 2025 Act, in Part II (ss.5–12) and Part III (ss.13–20), establishes a two-tier institutional mechanism that pairs an administrative agency with a specialist tribunal, and goes further than its counterparts in embedding lived experience within adjudication. The Social Empowerment Agency administers the Act, receives and investigates complaints and may refer matters for alternative dispute resolution (s.8) before any adjudication. The Disability Rights Tribunal, established by section 13, comprises three members, namely a chairperson who must be an attorney of at least seven years’ standing with expertise in disability or human rights matters; a deputy chairperson with expertise in social protection; and, notably, a third member who must either be a person with disabilities or represent an organisation for persons with disabilities (s.14(2)). The mandatory inclusion of a person with disabilities, or a disability-led organisation, within the Tribunal gives institutional effect to the principle of participation that animates the Convention. The Tribunal’s decisions are binding and enforceable in the High Court (s.19), with a right of appeal to that court (s.20).

The Act’s access-to-justice provisions are also of some import. Section 83 provides for the exemption of persons with disabilities from court fees in proceedings under the Act, and for the provision, free of charge, of sign-language interpretation, braille services and guide assistance, while section 84 affirms the legal capacity of persons with disabilities assessed as competent to make decisions about their own lives. These provisions respond directly to the kinds of failing identified in the Committee’s jurisprudence. In Al Adam v. Saudi Arabia,Footnote ⁶ the Committee found a violation of Article 13 where no procedural accommodation was made for a hearing-impaired defendant, holding that the state ‘was under an obligation to take all procedural accommodation that was necessary to enable his effective participation in the process’ (2018, para. 11.5). Meanwhile, in Beasley v. Australia,Footnote ⁷ the Committee held that the failure to provide sign-language interpretation for jury service violated the Convention’s accessibility requirements, since such provision would not have constituted a disproportionate or undue burden. Section 83 of the Barbadian Act gives statutory force to precisely these requirements.

4.9 Comparative legislative assessment

The regional disability statutes display distinct strengths and notable gaps and resist any simple ranking. The Bahamas has a genuine claim to regional leadership through its social-model definition of ‘persons with disabilities’ and its unique private-sector hiring quota; Belize’s 2024 Act introduces innovative fiscal incentives and comprehensive criminal enforcement against the ill-treatment of persons with disabilities (Disabilities Act 2024, ss.31–32, 34); Jamaica excels in housing accessibility and political participation; Antigua and Barbuda provides extensive educational accommodations and strong employment protections; Guyana has established robust enforcement mechanisms; and Trinidad and Tobago, though minimal in substantive coverage, maintains the most procedurally sophisticated tribunal. Significant gaps nonetheless persist. Belize’s legislation lacks housing and political-participation provisions; Trinidad and Tobago’s legislation contains no health-care guarantees; most jurisdictions provide minimal social protection; and several retain impairment-focused definitions without the accompanying protections against presumed, past or associative discrimination that General Comment No 6 contemplates.

Arguably, Barbados’s 2025 Act stands out as the most comprehensive statute in the region. It combines a social-model definition of the person (s.2) with detailed and integration-oriented educational guarantees (ss.30–32), a burden-shifting employment regime paired with a public-sector hiring duty (ss.35–42), an autonomy-based and burden-shifting health-care and insurance regime (ss.47–51), an extensive accessibility framework including a government housing quota and a public transport guarantee (ss.56(2)–66), a social-protection regime that mainstreams disability into emergency and climate change policy and establishes a permanent fund (ss.55 and 80–82), comprehensive civic participation and communication guarantees (ss.68–75) and a participatory institutional framework that embeds lived experience within adjudication (s.14(2)).

The sections that follow examine, through the capability and intersectional lenses, why such resourcing and implementation matter so profoundly, and why even the most comprehensive statute will fail to deliver substantive equality if the broader social and institutional structures remain unreformed.

5.1 Educational exclusion: undermining cognitive and social capabilities

Educational access and quality directly affect multiple capabilities, including senses, imagination and thought, which encompass education and intellectual development. The empirical findings suggest a systemic exclusion of persons with disabilities from educational opportunity in ways that compromise human development from the earliest ages. In St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, stakeholders reported that some students with disabilities were removed from mainstream schools and ‘dashed into special needs schools’, a practice they described as ‘very painful for those children’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 289). In many instances, disability assessment occurs too late, ‘usually when students are in Grade 6’, and the results are typically used as ‘a passport for kicking children out of mainstream schools’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 286) rather than to provide appropriate support within them. Similar patterns emerge across the region. For example, in St Lucia, most persons with disabilities surveyed reported that they had not received professional assessments in the course of their education (Haynes Reference Haynes2020, p. 53), while in Dominica only one respondent described the assessment conducted as adequate (Haynes Reference Haynes2020, p. 49). These failures directly betray the capability approach’s commitment to education systems that focus on ‘what people are actually able to do and to be’ when given appropriate support (Broderick Reference Broderick2018, p. 30). They also stand in sharp contrast to the inclusive-education obligation in Article 24 of the Convention, in respect of which the Committee, in General Comment No 4, has expressed serious concern about the ‘widespread lack of knowledge about the nature and advantages of inclusive and quality education’, and about the persistence of segregated provision (CRPD Committee Reference Committee2016b, para. 4). The integration duty in section 30 of Barbados’s 2025 Act, and its Individualised Education Plans in section 31, represent the kind of statutory mechanism that the Committee contemplates, although, as the findings make plain, their value will depend entirely on adequate resourcing.

The educational exclusion faced by many children with disabilities creates cascading effects across capabilities. As Mutanga and Walker demonstrate, albeit in the South African context, adverse educational experiences affect not only knowledge acquisition but also ‘social relations and social networks’, identity formation and future aspirations (Mutanga and Walker Reference Mutanga and Walker2015, p. 508). Relatedly, the lack of reasonable accommodation in education violates the principle, as noted by Hedge and MacKenzie, that ‘no special disadvantages accrue to children with disabilities in virtue of their disability’ (Hedge and MacKenzie Reference Hedge and MacKenzie2012, pp. 342–43).Footnote ⁹ The exclusion from mainstream education documented across the Caribbean thus represents multiple, interconnected capability deprivations that undermine long-term human development.

5.2 Health-care inadequacies: compromising bodily health and integrity

Nussbaum’s second capability, bodily health, requires ‘adequate nourishment, shelter, and reproductive health’ (Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum1999, p. 235), while bodily integrity encompasses physical security and freedom from violence. The empirical findings reveal several health-care inadequacies that compromise both. In Barbados, respondents reported that no assessment of their disability had been conducted by trained professionals during their encounters with the health-care system, and that none had received detailed medical reports regarding their conditions (Haynes Reference Haynes2020, p. 49). This pattern of inadequate assessment parallels the educational failures and reflects a broader systemic incapacity to recognise and respond to diverse needs.

Barriers to health-care access are pervasive elsewhere in the region. In St Vincent and the Grenadines, persons with disabilities often lack priority access at district clinics and ‘are generally the last people to be served by healthcare practitioners’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 299).Footnote ¹⁰ While provision is made for senior citizens to access services without payment, ‘persons with disabilities, many of whom are unemployed, often have to pay for routine services such as blood and urine tests’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 299). Persons with disabilities are also sometimes prevented from exercising agency within the health-care system, for example, in a particularly egregious case in which a hearing-impaired person was prevented from donating blood to his dying mother because hospital staff could not communicate in sign language and refused to accept interpretation assistance (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, pp. 398–99). The mental health context also reveals especially severe compromises. Facilities are described as overcrowded, and assessments are ‘haphazard and largely inefficacious’, with practitioners wrongly assuming ‘that every person at the facility has schizophrenia when, in reality, many persons have bipolar and related conditions that sometimes go undiagnosed and untreated’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 300). These failures are serious threats to human dignity (Jecker Reference Jecker2022).

The Committee’s decision in H.M. v. Sweden Footnote ¹¹ makes clear that the reasonable-accommodation obligation extends into the health-care sphere and demands an individualised assessment of proportionality rather than the rote application of general policy. Barbados’s statutory conditioning of health care on the free and informed consent of the person with a disability (s.47(2)(b)) gives expression to the autonomy principle that the Committee has located as being central to legal capacity under Article 12 (CRPD Committee 2014a, paras 41–42), but the empirical findings demonstrate how far ordinary clinical practice in the region remains from that principle.

5.3 Employment discrimination: denial of economic participation

Nussbaum’s tenth capability, control over one’s environment, includes the material dimension of ‘being able to work as a human being, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers’ (Malhotra Reference Malhotra2009, p. 73). The empirical findings reveal pervasive employment discrimination that systematically excludes persons with disabilities from meaningful economic participation across the Caribbean. In St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, disability is viewed by some employers ‘as an automatic disqualifier, even where the person may be skilled and certified’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 293). More specifically, qualified professionals with disabilities have repeatedly been excluded from employment by reason of accessibility barriers rather than any lack of competence. For example, a qualified teacher could not take up a post because the school to which she was assigned was inaccessible to wheelchair users, and a woman with qualifications in biology was excluded from laboratory work solely because of physical access limitations (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 295).

In the Grenadines, stakeholders cited a case in which a skilled baker with disabilities was offered employment but later dismissed when ‘customers stopped patronising the business as they were concerned about her preparing pastries’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 294), an illustration of how societal prejudice interacts with employer discrimination to produce widespread exclusion. Similar patterns recur elsewhere. In Barbados, a number of respondents with disabilities were concerned that many employers did not seriously or fairly assess their job applications (Haynes Reference Haynes2020, pp. 48–49), while in Jamaica, respondents reported insensitive workplace treatment, with some employers continuing to use demeaning terminology such as ‘handicap’ and ‘cripple’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2020, p. 56). These exclusions compromise the market’s potential role as a ‘conversion factor’ that ought to enable, rather than obstruct, capability realisation (Bhogal-Nair et al. Reference Bhogal-Nair, Lindridge, Tadajewski, Moufahim, Alcoforado, Cheded, Figueiredo and Liu2024, pp. 525–27). The Committee’s decision in V.F.C. v. Spain (2019, paras 8.6–8.8) confirms that the failure to consider reasonable accommodation for modified duties, in that case through mandatory retirement, itself constitutes a violation of Article 27, a standard against which the burden-shifting employment regime of Barbados’s legislation represents a meaningful, if as yet untested, advancement.

5.4 Social protection inadequacies: undermining basic security

Social protection systems are crucial conversion factors for translating formal rights into actual capabilities. As Trani and others observe, effective realisation of capability requires attention to conversion factors operating ‘at the family level (income, shelter, food ration, support, costs and expenditure)’ and ‘at regional or national levels (public goods investment, legal framework, rights and obligations)’ (Trani et al. Reference Trani, Bakhshi, Bellanca, Biggeri and Marchetta2011, p. 151). The empirical findings reveal inadequacies in social protection. In St Vincent and the Grenadines, the public assistance of $275 XCD monthly was described as ‘meagre’, with civil society representatives noting that ‘after persons with disabilities pay their utility bills from the public assistance afforded them, they typically have very little money at their disposal to purchase food and other basic household items’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 311). The requirement that persons with disabilities choose between employment programmes and public assistance creates artificial barriers to capability development. As one stakeholder observed, ‘many persons with disabilities have been told that they are required to wait until someone dies in certain areas before they could obtain public assistance’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 312). Meanwhile, inadequate social protection has, in some countries, ‘led to a few persons with disabilities becoming destitute’, a problem compounded by ‘the apparent lack of information on the procedures and facilities to make use of support systems’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 312). These failures reflect a broader institutional incapacity to provide what Nussbaum identifies as the material foundation necessary for human dignity (Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum1999, p. 234). Without it, other capabilities become largely theoretical. The dedicated and permanent National Development Fund established by sections 80 to 82 of Barbados’s 2025 Act represents a meaningful shift in that direction, although its adequacy will depend on the level at which it is resourced.

5.5 Housing and independent living: compromising autonomy

Access to appropriate housing directly affects multiple capabilities, including control over one’s environment and practical reason, which encompasses life planning and autonomous decision-making. The empirical findings reveal multiple barriers to independent living that force persons with disabilities into relationships of dependency that compromise their dignity. In many parts of the region, many persons with disabilities live either in homes owned by others, usually family members, or in government-run residential facilities, and poor access to housing has been widely reported. These challenges create particular vulnerabilities for persons with mobility impairments. In St Vincent and the Grenadines, for example, civil society representatives cited the situation of a man with a disability who lived in a banana shed in a rural community and was exposed both to the elements and to stone-throwing by neighbours. Despite requests for assistance with basic improvements to his shelter, he received none from the state (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 301). Inadequacies of this kind, which are present in other countries in the region, directly compromise what Nussbaum describes as the fundamental requirement of environmental control, namely the ability to shape one’s living circumstances in ways that support flourishing (Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum1999, p. 238). The 10 per cent government housing accessibility quota in section 56(2) of Barbados’s 2025 Act addresses this deprivation directly, though only in respect of new government construction.

5.6 Civic participation and political inclusion: denial of full citizenship

Nussbaum’s tenth capability encompasses both the material and the political dimensions of environmental control, including ‘having the right to participate in political choices that govern one’s life’ (Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum1999, p. 236). Physical access barriers pervade civic institutions across the region. In Antigua and Barbuda, while a few public buildings such as the High Court have ramps, the vast majority remain practically inaccessible (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 167). A similar situation obtains in Montserrat, where persons with disabilities have sometimes had to be carried upstairs in public buildings by the fire service (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 170), an experience respondents described as ‘humiliating and frustrating’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 170). Communication barriers compound these exclusions. In St Kitts and Nevis, stakeholders noted very limited access to, and expertise in, sign language, and observed that public broadcasts of national events lack signage, captioning or subtitles, thereby alienating and, in the case of emergency evacuations, endangering persons with disabilities (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 171). Shortcomings in legal representation further compound matters. In most Caribbean states, legal aid is available only for serious crimes, leaving persons with disabilities without representation in civil matters or for lesser charges. In Barbados, several persons with disabilities reported that, when they were charged with offences they could not afford to defend, police officers did not suggest counsel (Haynes Reference Haynes2020, p. 102), while in St Kitts and Nevis, several respondents reported not being promptly informed of the charges against them. These barriers confirm the inadequacy of mere formal equality. Access that is formally available but practically impossible violates human dignity (Malhotra Reference Malhotra2009, p. 62).

The Committee’s jurisprudence speaks directly to these deprivations. The voting exclusions documented in the region are of the very kind condemned in Bujdosó v. Hungary and Given v. Australia,Footnote ¹² and the failures of procedural accommodation in the justice system mirror those found impermissible in Al Adam v. Saudi Arabia and Beasley v. Australia.Footnote ¹³ That said, the access-to-justice and political-participation guarantees of Barbados’s 2025 Act (ss.68–70 and 83) seek to address these failings, and their significance lies in converting the abstract guarantees of the Convention into concrete, justiciable entitlements.

5.7 Cultural and recreational participation: denial of social integration

Nussbaum’s ninth capability, play, encompasses the recreational and cultural participation that contributes to flourishing beyond the satisfaction of basic needs. In many Caribbean countries, although ministries of culture have expressed a desire to improve access to sport, cultural activities and the performing arts, ensuring physical access to the relevant facilities remains deeply problematic. Many talented persons with disabilities indicated that they no longer even attempt to enter facilities that are inaccessible to them; knowing the barriers that exist, they simply stay away. Persons with visual impairments in particular expressed frustration at being almost routinely excluded from cultural, sporting and recreational activities, noting that initiatives such as blind cricket tournaments, successful elsewhere, have not been implemented in most regional jurisdictions (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 304). These exclusions reflect broader patterns of social segregation that deny persons with disabilities the ‘social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation’ that Nussbaum regards as essential to the capability for affiliation (Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum1999, p. 236).

5.8 Emergency preparedness: exposing systemic vulnerability

The findings on St Vincent and the Grenadines provide unique insights into how natural disasters expose and exacerbate capability deprivations. During the La Soufrière volcanic eruption of 2021, many people with disabilities faced abandonment that revealed the fragility of capability support systems in crisis (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 312). Stakeholders reported that there were insufficient means of evacuating persons with disabilities, owing to the lateness of the notices given and the lack of appropriately configured vehicles (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 312).Footnote ¹⁴ Communication failures were severe, the authorities lacking both adequate resources and information about the disabilities and commensurate needs of individuals, especially in rural communities (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 312). Civil society representatives reported that a high number of persons with disabilities were left in danger zones while family members and caretakers vacated their homes, noting that ‘the preparation system did not properly contemplate persons with disabilities’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 313). Even after evacuation, shelter accommodation was inadequate, with limited ground-floor space and rooms lacking railings and accessible bathrooms (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 313). These failures reaffirm the observation of MacKenzie and others, made in the Palestinian context, that ‘capability achievement is very difficult to achieve in conditions of structural injustice and inequality’ (MacKenzie et al. Reference MacKenzie, Owaineh, Bower and Özkaya2023, p. 3). It is against this backdrop that the statutory mainstreaming of disability into emergency and climate change policy in section 55 of Barbados’s 2025 Act is of some import. It represents a legislative attempt to ensure that the disaster response properly contemplates persons with disabilities from the outset.

5.9 Persistent implementation gaps

Even where comprehensive legislation has been enacted, persistent implementation gaps remain, reflecting what Vasbist identifies as the challenge of translating normative commitment into practice (Vasbist Reference Vasbist2010, p. 266). Jamaica’s experience is illustrative in this connection. Its Disabilities Act 2014 represents what stakeholders describe as a rights-based approach, yet its implementation was severely delayed, with the regulations taking seven years to reach Parliament and full implementation beginning only in February 2022. Even then, stakeholders noted that attitudinal and systemic barriers persist, with people in general remaining insensitive to the needs of persons with disabilities (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, pp. 96–97). In Guyana, stakeholders reported that, where information on the rights of persons with disabilities is shared with public bodies, those bodies do not generally use it to provide the required services (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, pp. 92–93). These challenges reflect what Harnacke explains as a fundamental limitation of normative approaches in that, while capabilities theories ‘support the general requirements set in the CRPD’, they remain ‘unable to guide the implementation process’ without attention to resource constraints and institutional capacity (Harnacke Reference Harnacke2013, p. 777).

6.1 Gender and disability

The intersection of gender and disability creates particular vulnerabilities that neither single-axis gender analysis nor disability-focused approaches adequately capture. The findings reveal that women with disabilities face distinctive challenges in accessing health care, employment and protection from violence (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 157). In some jurisdictions, women with disabilities who are cognitively able to consent to sexual relationships are routinely denied the opportunity to form intimate relationships by family members and caretakers, with the state generally declining to intervene to redress this denial of agency (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 298). Many Caribbean women with disabilities also face heightened risks of gender-based violence, compounded by their disability status, a vulnerability that is especially acute given high regional rates of domestic violence and the inaccessibility of many support services. In Grenada, stakeholders reported instances in which women with disabilities who had experienced domestic violence were told by judicial officers that they were ‘lucky that they have men’, while women with Down syndrome received ‘far less sympathy from justice system officials than other categories of persons subject to domestic abuse’ (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 157). This reflects broader patterns of devaluation experienced by persons with disabilities globally, as documented by Ben-Moshe and Magaña (Reference Ben-Moshe and Magaña2014, p. 109).

These findings engage the heightened protections that Articles 6 and 7 of the Convention afford to women and children with disabilities. The Committee has emphasised, in General Comment No 3, that women with disabilities face particular risks of violence requiring the exercise of due diligence by states (CRPD Committee Reference Committee2016a, paras 26–32). The employment challenges facing Caribbean women with disabilities likewise reflect broader patterns of gendered labour-market discrimination (Haynes Reference Haynes2020), as traditional gender roles combine with disability stereotypes, and the absence of childcare support and accessible transport, to produce and sustain exclusion. As Brown and Moloney observe in this connection, ‘women with disabilities experienced steeper declines in income, job autonomy, and greater workplace stress as disability severity increased compared to men’ (Brown and Moloney Reference Brown and Eastin Moloney2019, p. 110). Barbados’s 2025 Act responds to several of these intersecting challenges. Section 24 provides comprehensive protection against economic, emotional, physical and sexual abuse; section 25 affirms sexual and reproductive rights; and section 54 mandates caregiver support, acknowledging the gendered character of much care work.

6.2 Race and disability

The Caribbean’s history of plantation slavery and colonial exploitation has created enduring structures of racial inequality that profoundly shape contemporary experiences of disability. The legacy of the eugenics movement, which targeted both racial minorities and persons with disabilities for exclusion and elimination, continues to influence social attitudes and institutional practice throughout the region. Black and Indigenous persons (Gilroy et al. Reference Gilroy, Uttjek, Lovern and Ward2021, p. 2081)Footnote ¹⁶ with disabilities, in particular in Belize, Guyana, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines, often suffer acutely from limited employment opportunities and from discrimination in hiring and promotion, as well as from limited access to quality education and health care. Disability prevention and early intervention remain inadequate, while support services remain concentrated in urban areas serving predominantly lighter-skinned, higher-income populations (Haynes Reference Haynes2020). These patterns share similarities with the experiences of persons with disabilities elsewhere. As Liasidou argues in this context, ‘racial inequality and immigration restrictions have been justified on the basis of particular ethnic and racial groups’ supposed tendencies to feeble-mindedness, mental illness, deafness, blindness, and other disabilities’ (Liasidou Reference Liasidou2013, p. 302). The intersection of race and disability finds particularly stark expression in the position of persons with albinism, whose vulnerability the Committee addressed in Y v. Tanzania,Footnote ¹⁷ where it found that the state’s failure to protect a twelve-year-old child with albinism from a brutal attack, and to investigate and punish that attack, contravened the Convention.

6.3 Class and disability

The intersection of class and disability creates particularly severe forms of marginalisation throughout the region. Limited economic resources constrain access to the assistive technologies, accessible transport and private health care that might mitigate disability-related barriers (Haynes Reference Haynes2020). The research reveals that cost considerations affect access to assistive devices, with respondents in each country identifying such devices as too costly and subject to various import restrictions (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 293). Economic inequality also affects the quality of disability assessment and support. While wealthier families can access private rehabilitation and specialised education with relative ease, lower-income families rely on under-resourced public services that provide inadequate support (Haynes Reference Haynes2017, p. 102), creating divergent trajectories of capability development based on economic status rather than individual potential. The predominance of the informal economy compounds these challenges, since the informal sector, which employs significant portions of Caribbean populations, remains largely unregulated, so that persons with disabilities who lack access to formal employment find themselves excluded from both legal protection and social-security benefits. Pal makes similar findings in the Indian context, observing that Dalits with disabilities are doubly disadvantaged, a considerably higher percentage working as casual wage labourers than among upper castes (Pal Reference Pal2011, p. 168). The financial concessions and tax exemptions in sections 77 and 78 of Barbados’s 2025 Act, and the establishment of the National Development Fund in sections 80 to 82, represent a statutory attempt to address this class dimension, though their reach into the informal sector is yet to be seen.

6.4 Geography and disability

The geographic dimension of intersectional discrimination is particularly important in the Caribbean, where key services and opportunities remain concentrated in urban centres. Rural persons with disabilities face compounded barriers, including limited transport, inadequate infrastructure and reduced access to specialised services (Haynes Reference Haynes2020). Vulnerability to hurricanes and other natural disasters adds a further dimension to geographic marginalisation. Indeed, climate change disproportionately affects low-lying areas (Haynes Reference Haynes2022, p. 313), where many persons with disabilities are concentrated, placing them at heightened risk during emergencies. The digital divide creates a further geographic intersection, since rural areas often lack reliable Internet access even as persons with disabilities may require specialised technologies to access digital services. As Wickenden observes, ‘often an impairment is only of importance to the extent that it means that someone needs some reasonable adjustments and accommodations in order to participate on equal basis with others’ (Wickenden Reference Wickenden2023), yet geographic isolation seriously impedes access to those accommodations. It is precisely this geographic and disaster-related dimension that Barbados’s 2025 Act seeks to address through the emergency and climate change provisions of section 55.

6.5 Sexuality and disability

The intersection of sexuality and disability creates additional layers of marginalisation that regional legislation often fails to acknowledge. LGBTIQ persons with disabilities, in particular, face discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation or gender identity and disability status, creating compounded barriers to health care, employment and social participation (Haynes Reference Haynes2020). Traditional and parochial Caribbean attitudes toward sexuality combine with disability stereotypes to embed invisibility and exclusion for this population. The sexual and reproductive rights of persons with disabilities receive limited attention in regional policy discourse, and where they receive attention, the response is often underpinned by negative stigma and assumptions about the limits of sexual agency (Haynes Reference Haynes2020). Yet, as Hirschmann demonstrates, disability challenges fundamental assumptions about bodily normalcy and sexuality, she notes that ‘levels of happiness are the same for disabled people as nondisabled people’ (Hirschmann Reference Hirschmann2012, p. 399). Against this backdrop, Caribbean states must move beyond ‘essentialising the category of people with a disability’ (Goethals et al. Reference Goethals, Schauwer and Van Hove2015, p. 86). Barbados’s 2025 Act takes a tentative step in this direction by affirming, in section 25, the sexual and reproductive rights of persons with disabilities, and by protecting legal capacity and supported decision-making in section 84.

6.6 An intersectional synthesis

In the final analysis, despite formal legal protection in several Caribbean countries, persons with disabilities, particularly those experiencing multiple forms of marginalisation, continue to face significant and widespread barriers that reflect the intersection of ableism with racism, sexism, classism and geography. Only through an intersectional approach, coupled with a capability approach, can Caribbean nations begin to address the structural inequalities that continue to exclude and marginalise persons with disabilities. Addressing intersectional disability discrimination requires what Erevelles and Minear call an ‘intercategorical analysis of intersectionality’, which ‘enables us to foreground the structural context where the social categories of race, class, gender, and disability are (re)constituted’ (Erevelles and Minear Reference Erevelles and Minear2010, p. 141). There is a clear need in the Caribbean for such structural analysis, which can reveal how seemingly neutral policies and practices systematically disadvantage those experiencing multiple forms of marginalisation, in just the manner that the Committee recognised in Domina v. Denmark.