International activists called on Jamaica to revoke the anti-gay sex statute known as the buggery law on Tuesday, adding that the government has yet to follow the suggestion made by a regional rights commission two years prior.
The request comes as more islands in the traditionally conservative Caribbean area overturn identical but seldom used rules that frequently call for life sentences and hard labor. Being the Caribbean country that is most unfriendly to homosexuals, Jamaica has opposed such a repeal.
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According to Devon Matthews of Rainbow Railroad, a Canadian organization that aids members of the LGBTQ community in escaping abuse, “Jamaica is really an outlier.” “The situation has gotten significantly worse in the last number of years.”
In a study issued on Tuesday by Rainbow Railroad and Human Dignity Trust, a nonprofit legal group in the UK, it was discovered that the LGBTQ population in Jamaica is subjected to “horrific violence, discrimination, and persecution and lacks the most fundamental legal rights.”
Since the year 2019, there have been more requests for assistance from LGBT individuals in Jamaica, with 411 violent occurrences recorded in 2018 compared to 377 the year before, according to Matthews, who spoke to the Associated Press by phone.
“The data doesn’t even do justice to the degree of violence that we’re seeing,” she claimed. “It’s truly horrifying.”
With regards to two members of the island’s Gay community who were compelled to leave Jamaica, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights determined in February 2021 that the Jamaican government had violated their rights to privacy, equality protection, humane treatment, and freedom of movement.
Gareth Henry, one of the defendants, is gay and now lives as a refugee in Canada with his mother, sister, and other family members after being assaulted by Jamaican police multiple times in front of irate crowds. According to Human Dignity Foundation, the other defendant, a lesbian named Simone Edwards, was shot twice as a result of anti-gay violence and was granted refuge in the Netherlands.
At the time, the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights urged that Jamaica remove its alleged anti-buggery statute. This hasn’t occurred yet.
If the state had intervened, “a lot of lovely individuals lost in this tragedy might have been protected,” Matthews added.
The government of Jamaica claims that it doesn’t implement its anti-sodomy laws since 1864, but activists claim that keeping them on the books fosters homophobia and violent crimes against the LGBT population in the 2.8 million-person, devout nation.
Even when regulations are not upheld at the state level, according to Matthews, communities, and families will occasionally enforce them.
The prime minister of Jamaica’s office did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Also, Rainbow Railroad claimed that although it is legal for women in Jamaica to participate in same-sex relationships, it is not unusual for their families to plan so-called “corrective rapes” of them or their partners.
Advocates also point out that homosexual people in Jamaica face barriers to employment, healthcare, education, and housing.
Several Caribbean nations that later abolished their same-sex legislation were found to have similar prejudice; Barbados did so in December, following in the footsteps of Antigua & Barbuda and St. Kitts and Nevis. Nonetheless, five other American nations—Jamaica, Guyana, Grenada, Dominica, and St. Vincent, and the Grenadines—continue to have such laws in effect.
