Jamaican Homophobia is Rampant
Human Rights Watch moves critique of nation’s
bigotry beyond just violent music
Gay
City News, December 16, 2004
By Nicholas Boston
The heated debate over institutionalized homophobia on
the island-nation of Jamaica took a decisive turn in mid-November with the
release of a comprehensive
report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the
U.S.-based non-profit organization, detailing extensive, state-sanctioned
abuse in Jamaica of sexual minorities and people living with HIV/AIDS.
The report struck a chord with The
New York Times, which published an editorial
on December 2 stating that “Jamaica needs to work harder at improving its
public health and AIDS awareness efforts.” The editorial claimed that the
Caribbean region as a whole has the second-highest HIV infection rate in the
world and that other countries in the arc are more vigorously addressing the
problem.
The editorial echoed HRW in accusing the Jamaican
government, police force and healthcare system of enabling the spread of AIDS
by, respectively, refusing to repeal archaic sodomy laws, participating in
anti-gay violence, and shunning AIDS patients in its care.
One of several testimonials in the HRW report reads,
“Craig F., a health worker in northeast Jamaica, estimated that 90 percent
of men who engage in homosexual conduct with whom he had worked had told him
that they would not seek treatment for sexually transmitted diseases in the
public health system because they feared that confidentiality was not
maintained. Harold B., 34, told Human Rights Watch that health workers
mistreated men who have sex with men: ‘When you go to a clinic and they know
you are gay, they scorn you.’”
Jamaican officials in the United States immediately
condemned The Times editorial. In a letter to The Times dated December 3,
Gordon Shirley, Jamaican ambassador to the U.S., wrote that the editorial
“relied heavily on the accusation of an activist group that insinuated an
anti-gay bias within Jamaica’s medical system. We strongly take issue with
this characterization.”
Aubrey Campbell, a spokesperson for the office of the
Jamaican consul general in New York told Gay City News that the consul
general, Dr. Basil Bryan, stood behind the letter and declined further comment
on the issue.
The Human Rights Watch report is a significant expansion
of an ongoing critique of homophobia in Jamaican culture. For years, gay and
human rights advocates in Jamaica and around the world have protested the
virulently homophobic content of some of the island’s most widely
distributed pop music. In the last year alone, Jamaican recording artists
Beenie Man and Sizzla, among others, came under fire internationally for their
songs’ lyrics, which call for the slaughter of “battymen,” or gays.
On the international stage, the protests have typically
focused on the music, stopping short of challenging government or legal
policies in Jamaica that might account for such brazen articulations of
anti-gay sentiment.
The scope of the HRW report goes beyond the music
industry to consider the possible impact of government regulations, law
enforcement practices and the workings of the healthcare system not only on
the treatment of gay men and lesbians, but also on the nation’s capacity to
contain the spread of AIDS.
The report specifically recommends that the Jamaican
government repeal a set of 19th century statutes, originally instituted by
British colonial administrators, “which criminalize sex between consenting
adult men and are used as justification for harassment of men who have sex
with men and of HIV/AIDS educators working with them.”
According to the 79-page report, entitled “Hated to
Death: Homophobia, Violence and Jamaica’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic,” gay men,
lesbians and people living with HIV/AIDS face violence that is often murderous
from not only ordinary citizens, but also the police force. People perceived
to be gay or lesbian, the report says, are regularly the targets of raids on
homes and weapon-wielding ambushes.
Extensive testimonials contained within the report tell
of this abuse, in addition to describing multiple instances in which health
care workers neglect AIDS sufferers, even within hospitals.
One testimonial reads, “Albert B., 33, and his friends
had been attacked by Kingston police a few days before Human Rights Watch met
with him in June, 2004. The police beat Albert B. and his friends, threw
stones at them, called them ‘battymen,’ ‘faggot,’ and ‘nasty men’
and drew their guns at them. The police actions drew the attention of other
men, who came and beat them with boards, crying out ‘battymen.’”
The cover of the HRW report is a photograph of the back
of a young man’s head with wide gashes on his head and neck from a machete
attack.
“I can’t even get past the cover photo,” said
Julius Powell, a staff member of New York AIDS Coalition, a statewide support
agency, and a Jamaican national who has worked extensively in gay and AIDS
support networks in Jamaica before emigrating to the U.S. “I’ve read
testimonials like that before. It’s not that it’s particularly new. It’s
just that no one [in Jamaica] is listening. You’ve had over 50 [anti-gay]
murders, what more do you need?”
The HRW report contends that while the Jamaican
government has undertaken campaigns to quell the spread of AIDS, its
maintenance of centuries-old legislation and failure to address pervasive
cultural attitudes which foster hostility towards gays and lesbians serve to
undermine its best efforts.
“Until Jamaica addresses the epidemic of homophobic
violence, it will have no hope against the epidemic of HIV/AIDS,” said
Rebecca Schleifer, a researcher at HRW and a principal author of the report.
“If the Jamaican government is serious about fighting the country’s AIDS
epidemic, it should stop promoting brutality against gay men and lesbians and
start protecting them from abuse.”
Jamaica is headed by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson,
generally regarded as a center-left politician. Patterson himself has thus far
remained silent about the report’s findings, while response from
senior-level officials has been mixed. The Department of Heath initially
expressed outrage, dismissing the report as “misleading, exaggerated and
unacceptable.”
“Whereas advocating for human rights, legal and policy
protection for persons affected by or at high risk of HIV/AIDS is a noble
cause, providing misleading information and producing inflammatory sweeping
statements undermines the efforts and progress made by the National HIV/AIDS
Program and many of its local and international stakeholders,” said Dr.
Yitades Gebre, executive director of the program in a letter addressed to
HRW’s Schleifer, which was reported in the November 23 issue of the Jamaica
Observer newspaper.
On December 1, however, the Associated Press reported
that Jamaican Health Minister John Junor said his government is considering
legislation that would protect HIV-positive people from discrimination at work
and in other areas of public life.
“But you can’t just legislate to erase the stigma,”
Junor told the AP. “You have to educate people.”
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