Many Caribbean nations that were once British colonies had laws against sodomy on the books until recently. However due to the concerted efforts of LBGTQ activists, and with backup from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—“a principal and autonomous organ of the Organization of American States”—some of those laws have been repealed in the past year. But not all.
Barbados did so in December 2022, St. Kitts and Nevis in August, and Antigua and Barbuda in July. Yet these discriminatory laws remain on the books in Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
There’s been a stunning rise in anti-LBGTQ legislation in the U.S., fueled by MAGA Republicans in statehouses and governor’s mansions. Don’t think I’m finger-pointing at the Caribbean while ignoring that our own house is hateful.
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
In February, Dánica Coto reported on activist efforts in Jamaica for the Associated Press.
Activists demanded Tuesday that Jamaica repeal a colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex, noting that the government still has not heeded a regional rights panel’s recommendation two years ago to do so. The call comes as a growing number of islands in the conservative Caribbean region strike down similar but rarely invoked laws that often seek life sentences and hard labor. Jamaica has resisted such a repeal, and is considered the Caribbean nation most hostile toward gay people.
“Jamaica is really an outlier,” said Devon Matthews with Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian group that helps members of the LGBTQ community escape violence. “The situation has gotten significantly worse in the last number of years.”
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One defendant, Gareth Henry, is a gay man who was beaten several times by Jamaica police in front of angry crowds and now lives as a refugee in Canada along with his mother, sister and other relatives. The other defendant, Simone Edwards, a lesbian woman, obtained asylum in the Netherlands after she was shot twice in anti-gay violence, according to Human Dignity Trust.
Henry is now a senior program officer for the Canada-based Rainbow Railroad nonprofit. From the organization’s statement on their efforts in Jamaica:
Two years after a landmark decision from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) urging the Jamaican government to repeal the country’s homophobic laws, Rainbow Railroad and the Human Dignity Trust call on Jamaica to immediately comply with the top Americas human rights tribunal’s recommendations.
Despite two years having passed since the IACHR’s decision was made public, Jamaica has resolutely failed to comply with a single recommendation made by the Commission. In particular, homophobic laws remain in force and there is no protection from discrimination for the LGBTQI+ community.
In the face of this lack of progress, the organizations released a joint report, A Caribbean Outlier: Repeal anti-LGBTQI+ laws in Jamaica, documenting the violence, harassment and discrimination faced by LGBTQI+ people in Jamaica over the last two years.
Henry appears in this short Rainbow Road video, uploaded on Feb. 21.
Simone Edwards, who escaped death in Jamaica and made it alive to the Netherlands, is one of the subjects of of the powerful 2013 documentary The Abominable Crime, along with Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican attorney and LBGTQ activist.
THE ABOMINABLE CRIME, at heart, is a story about a mother's love for her child and an activist's troubled love for his country. It also gives voice to gay Jamaicans who, in the face of endemic anti-gay violence, are forced to flee their homeland.
Simone, a young lesbian single mother, survives a brutal anti-gay shooting. Now she must choose between hiding with her daughter in Jamaica in constant fear for their lives or escaping alone to seek safety and asylum abroad.
Maurice, Jamaica's leading human-rights activist, is outed shortly after filing a lawsuit challenging his country’s anti-sodomy law. After receiving a flood of death threats, he escapes to Canada, and then risks everything to return to continue his activism.
Told first hand as they unfold, these personal accounts take the audience on an emotionally gripping journey traversing four years and five countries. Their stories expose the roots of homophobia in Jamaican society, reveal the deep psychological and social impacts of discrimination on the lives of gays and lesbians, and offer an intimate first-person perspective on the risks and challenges of seeking asylum abroad.
Content note: The film’s discussions of sexual and physical violence are graphic. There are also some spelling errors in the captions—for example “buggery” is written as “burglary.”
Watch the full 66-minute film, directed by Micah Fink, below.
Join me in the comments section below for links to more organizations fighting for LBGTQ rights in the Caribbean, and for the weekly Caribbean News Roundup.