Caribbean AIDS Outreach Efforts Hampered by Homophobic Violence
St. Lucia Star,
July 30, 2003
P.O. Box 1146 Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies
Fax: 758-450 8690
Email: starpub@candw.lc
http://www.stluciastar.com/midweek/wedjuly30-03/news1.htm#news2
By Richard Stern
Gay tourists from the US and Europe flood Caribbean beaches in island
paradises such as Montego Bay, Jamaica as well as many smaller islands
including St Lucia, Grenada, Dominica, and Antigua, but they are almost
certainly unaware that they are supporting an economy controlled by
governments that maintain or support repressive and even violent policies
against the local communities of gays and lesbians. And even as international
agencies are investing millions in support of these same governments in
dealing with the AIDS epidemic, the community of men who have sex with men is
forced to remain completely underground in many Caribbean nations.
On June 12 I met clandestinely with a group of gay men in an apartment in
St Lucia. These men, who I will call Frederick, William and Paul, all in their
early 30s, live a closeted double life, which is reinforced by their fear of
being discovered at work. They have no bars to go to and it is totally
impossible for them to form an association or meet openly. Gay life in St
Lucia revolves around private parties and several networks of gay men who
maintain contact with each other. The International AIDS Alliance based in
Great Britain has begun a project in various Caribbean nations to support gay
men in organizing support groups focused on AIDS prevention.
According to the laws of St Lucia, “a person who commits buggery is
guilty of an offense and liable on conviction to imprisonment for (a) life if
committed by an adult on a minor, (b) twenty-five years if committed by an
adult on another adult; (c) in this section buggery means sexual intercourse
per anus by a male person with a male or by a male person with a female
person.
This means that a consensual homosexual act between adults in St Lucia is
penalized with imprisonment. While the government does not go around arresting
people who are suspected to be gay, a climate of fear and intolerance
prevails.
William summarized his situation: “As a gay St Lucian I have always been
aware that I am legally defenseless against discrimination, harassment, and
violence. Neither my government, nor my church nor any other social welfare
organization is even willing to acknowledge my natural existence, far less
support my right to live a safe, healthy and fulfilling life. I am
disappointed in my country and like so many of my other gay countrymen and
women, will probably end up making my real home somewhere else.”
However, all St Lucians interviewed agreed that emigration is only an
option for the upper class, educated individuals. Most gay St Lucians are
stuck where they are.
As a result, reaching the gay community is a daunting task, when virtually
no one is willing to admit that they are gay or bi-sexual. This is the
challenge facing the St Lucia’s health ministry which claims that it wants
to scale up its actions relating to the AIDS epidemic. During a speech at an
AIDS related event held in St Lucia on June 9, health minister Damian Greaves
stated that “discrimination jeopardizes equitable access to prevention,
treatment and care, products and services. The appreciation of human rights is
an essential ingredient in protecting the dignity and rights of persons
infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.”
Contacted on July 23, Greaves was asked by this writer if his comments
applied to the possible decriminalization of homosexual behavior in St Lucia.
“We are reviewing our criminal code within the next two or three months
and we want to move in that direction,” he said. “Our Ministry will
championing this issue at the Cabinet level.” Greaves recognized that given
the possibility of religious and political opposition to decriminalization,
that this will not be an easy struggle. However, that move may be worth while
as there are a number of young St Lucian men who could be potential leaders in
efforts directed at AIDS prevention if the atmosphere of fear did not exist.
Several years ago, the British government requested that its territories
and colonies in the region repeal their laws punishing consenting adult same
sex activity, but they have no jurisdiction over those members of the British
Commonwealth which are now independent counties. Britain’s government has
said that anti-gay laws in colonies and territories violate international
human rights agreements it has signed. But chief minister Osborne Fleming of
Anguilla, one of the few remaining colonies, was quoted in the Trinidad-based
gay magazine Free Forum saying “we cannot simply stand up and propose a law
in the assembly to legalize homosexuality.”
According to sociologist Robert Carr, director of the non-governmental
organization called Jamaica AIDS Support, gay men in Jamaica face significant
threats of violence. Carr quotes an article from the Daily Gleaner,
Jamaica’s largest daily newspaper, on April 24, 2000, that “among the
victims was a man cornered in a Baptist Church hall . . . in Kingston about
3:30pm on Saturday and shot dead as he begged for his life. Sources say his
killers jeered him before pumping several bullets into his body. The man was
accused of being a homosexual.” Police in Jamaica will frequently refuse to
intervene in a situation of violence against gays. According to Carr, quoting
from a report by Amnesty International, “the gay and lesbian community in
Jamaica faces extreme prejudice. Sexual acts in private between consenting
male adults remain criminalized and punishable by imprisonment and hard
labor.”
Thomas Glave is a professor of English at the State University of New York,
who was born in NY but raised in Jamaica. According to him, when gays are
arrested under Jamaica sodomy laws, their names and addresses are published in
the local press and it is common for neighbors to attack them violently. Glave
has cited cases of Jamaican gays being attacked with bottles of acid.
According to Free Forum, a Jamaican gay man, David, was recently granted
asylum in the UK because of repeated attacks he suffered at the hands of gay
bashers in Jamaica. His throat was slashed once, but he survived and another
time his arm was broken.
In Jamaica, a gay lesbian support group known as J-Flag was founded in
1998. J-Flag indicates that it has “made written submission to the Joint
Select Committee of the Houses of Parliament for the inclusion of sexual
orientation as a basis on which the Constitution of Jamaica prohibits
discrimination.”
AIDS experts agree that prevention efforts are virtually impossible when
high-risk communities are forced to remain invisible because of prejudice.
“The situation in the Caribbean would make reaching out to the
gay/bi-sexual communities virtually impossible. People will not identify
themselves and participate in workshops or educational activities if they know
that they face serious consequences.
“The AIDS leadership in the Caribbean community has not done enough to
reduce the stigma and discrimination attached to being gay and a significant
percentage of dollars flowing into the region for prevention are being
wasted,” said Costa Rican activist Guillermo Murillo. Neither St Lucia nor
Jamaica, nor the majority of other small Caribbean states, provide
anti-retroviral access to people living with HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that
over 4000 people are currently in need of treatment in Jamaica while 500
currently need it in St Lucia. Epidemiologist Farley Clegghorn, currently at
the University of Maryland, but originally from Trinidad has estimated that
only about 3 percent of the 170,000 people in the Caribbean who are currently
in need of anti-retroviral treatment actually have access to it. Stigma which
links AIDS to homosexuality as well as to sexual promiscuity still impact
heavily on those who set public health priorities in the region.
Caricom, the organization responsible for coordination of Health Care
issues in the Caribbean region, recently published its “model legislation
for sexual offenses,” but astonishingly, continues to endorse the
criminalization of same sex consenting adult sexual behavior. According to the
Caricom website, the legislation defines as ‘gross indecency’ an act other
than sexual intercourse by a person involving the use of genital organ for the
purpose of gratifying sexual desire.
It specifies a penalty of up to five years in prison for such acts between
two persons of the same sex. In 1998, Dominica enacted anti-gay laws which are
apparently based on the Caricom legislation providing a five-year prison term
for “gross indecency” if two same sex individuals engage in any form of
sexual conduct. The law clearly states that heterosexual couples are exempted.
However buggery (anal sex) is punished by 10 years in prison, even between
consenting adults.
Paradoxically, Caricom has taken on a meaningful leadership role in the
region in terms of AIDS prevention and has recently submitted a multi-million
dollar proposal to the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In the
same breath as it published the model legislation, Caricom acknowledges that
“heavy stigma.”
In Guyana, a country of 700,000, Parliament approved a constitutional
reform in 2000 that would have prohibited discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation but the law was vetoed by Guyana’s president because of
religious opposition. According to the Guyana Human Rights Association, the
chairperson of the Guyana Council of Churches, Bishop Juan Edghilt, was
recently quoted as saying the new law would “open the door to homosexuality,
bestiality, child abuse and every form of sexual perversion being enshrined in
the highest law of this land.”
The constitutional amendment is about to be reconsidered by the Guyanese
Parliament, but opposition to it has apparently grown since 2000. Belize
(population 250,000) is another Caricom country linked to the region by
language, culture and history, although it is geographically on the northern
edge of Central America. Tourism is one of its main industries. I have visited
Belize several times in the past few years. There is apparently less overt
violence against gays there but the gay community still remains completely in
the closet.
Recently I spoke with a former Belizean Minister who said she is an
advocate of gay rights but when asked if she would be willing to say this
publicly in her country, she was hesitant.
There is a non-governmental organization in Belize that provides support
services to gay and lesbian people, but this is not openly stated. Gays and
lesbians are everywhere in Belize and even occupy important positions in
government, but they remain psychologically oppressed by their culture.
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