Colin Stewart is a 45-year journalism veteran living in Southern…
The Caribbean island nation of Dominica will soon become the region’s third country facing a lawsuit over its anti-gay laws.
Location of Dominica in the eastern Caribbean.
A gay man, who must remain anonymous for his own protection, is about to file a constitutional challenge against two statutes that outlaw consensual sexual activity among LGBT people in Dominica.
The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network announced plans for the lawsuit yesterday. The HIV Legal Network is also supporting similar lawsuits in Jamaica and Barbados.
The new lawsuit will challenge two provisions of Dominica’s Sexual Offenses Act — Section 16, which provides for up to 10 years in prison and forced psychiatric confinement for anal sex, and Section 14, which provides for up to 12 years in prison for “gross indecency,” including any sexual activity between same-sex partners.
Those laws also create dangers for the anonymous plaintiff beyond the possibility of imprisonment: “Already, he has experienced homophobic hostility, discrimination, harassment, threats, and physical and sexual assaults fueled by these hateful laws. In one instance, he was savagely attacked in his own home, yet police refused to investigate and allowed his attacker to remain free,” the HIV Legal Network stated.
Darryl Philip, founder and leader of Minority Rights Dominica (MiRiDom), added:
Daryl Phillip (Photo courtesy of TheDominican.net)
“These brutal and often life-threatening experiences are sadly not unique and are instead a daily reality of many LGBT people in Dominica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Because the law criminalises all LGBT people, it sends a powerful message that other people — whether law enforcement or regular citizens on the street — are entitled to discriminate and commit human rights abuses against LGBT individuals.”
Lawsuit launch will complete trifecta of legal challenges in Caribbean countries with many of the harshest anti-LGBT laws
Logo of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
June 24, 2019 — A gay man, who must remain anonymous for his own protection, is about to file a landmark case challenging Dominica’s homophobic laws that criminalise “buggery” and “gross indecency,” targeting the consensual sexual activity of LGBT people. With support from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (“HIV Legal Network”), an international human rights organisation, the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program, and other likeminded groups, this important case will demonstrate that these horrific and outdated laws violate human rights guaranteed in the Constitution of Dominica.
The lawsuit, now finalised, will be formally filed in Dominica in the coming weeks, and follows the launch of similar legal challenges supported by the HIV Legal Network in both Jamaica (2015) and Barbados (2018), which are both underway. In the Caribbean context, these three countries lay claim to some of the worst anti-LGBT laws that violate human rights and all-too-often result in State-sanctioned violence against LGBT people.
The two key sections of the Sexual Offenses Act (SOA) of Dominica being challenged are section 16, which criminalises anal sex with a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment and the possibility of forced psychiatric confinement, and section 14, which is a sweeping law criminalising “gross indecency” (including any sexual activity between same-sex partners) with a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison.
The claimant at the centre of this case is a gay man who could face more than a decade in prison for private sexual intercourse with consenting adult same-sex partners. Already, he has experienced homophobic hostility, discrimination, harassment, threats, and physical and sexual assaults fueled by these hateful laws. In one instance, he was savagely attacked in his own home, yet police refused to investigate and allowed his attacker to remain free.
“These brutal and often life-threatening experiences are sadly not unique and are instead a daily reality of many LGBT people in Dominica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean. Because the law criminalises all LGBT people, it sends a powerful message that other people — whether law enforcement or regular citizens on the street — are entitled to discriminate and commit human rights abuses against LGBT individuals,” says Darryl Philip, Founder and Head of Minority Rights Dominica (MiRiDom). “The launch of this case coincides with World Pride and the 50th anniversary of Stonewall. While people are rightfully celebrating, I implore us all to remember that LGBT people are still harshly criminalised in many parts of the world.”
These laws violate multiple fundamental rights of all people in Dominica, but especially the rights of LGBT people. They also undermine an effective response to HIV among gay men and other men who have sex with men.
Maurice Tomlinson (Photo courtesy of Facebook)
“Dominica is in the midst of an ongoing HIV crisis. A man seeking HIV testing or visiting the doctor for a check-up who indicates he is sexually active with a male partner is actually confessing to a crime. This reality poses significant barriers to effective HIV and AIDS health programs,” says Maurice Tomlinson, Senior Policy Analyst at the HIV Legal Network and a Jamaican citizen. “Changing these laws is both a human rights and public health imperative.”
The ultimate goal of these legal challenges is to end the criminalisation of consensual sexual activity between people above the age of consent, in particular among same-sex partners. The courts can make binding decisions obliging the state to end any breach of the Constitution, including by changing its laws. As has been shown in the United States, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, India and Botswana, court cases are the most effective way of ending these laws when governments are either too slow or too afraid to act.
“While some people are forced to flee their country of origin to escape anti-gay laws and the violence that often accompanies them, others do not have that opportunity or do not wish to leave their home,” says Tomlinson. “With this case, we hope to provide the LGBT people of Dominica with the important, life-affirming option to stay, if they so choose. We want to bring an end to the hateful laws that plague our countries, one legal challenge at a time.”
“dozens of men and women were reportedly imprisoned for same-sex activity in Dominica as recently as 2001” — What is the source of this, please? Pink News ???
Aw, come on! You want to be more credible than they are. Please do a little work to authenticate this.
I did a lot of work in 2016 when this language from an ICCPR shadow report
Statistics provided by the Criminal Records Office show that fifty (50) cases of buggery were reported between 2000 and 2010. There is no record of how many of these cases were between consenting adult men and as such this figure may represent non-consenting heterosexual, consenting heterosexual, non consenting same sex and consenting same sex buggery. For example, a 2010 Dominica News Online article on court room proceedings reports a 17 year old boy being charged with committing the act of buggery on a 9 year old girl.
ended up travelling from there to a Kaleidoscope report to ILGA’s annual report to a map in the Economist showing laws against same-sex activity actively enforced in Dominica.
Why is our imagination of Caribbean homophobia so eager to displace fact? As I said then, “We lose all credibility and harm our movements if we make human rights claims about our states and the sex we are complaining they are prosecuting is by adults with minors or is assault.”
Do verify this with Darryl and Maurice. I believe these arrests were before the Sexual Offences Act was reformed to allow such offences to be charged as unlawful connection.
Thanks for that criticism and the correspondence that followed it. Because of you, the article now is better than before.
— Colin Stewart, editor/publisher of this blog
“dozens of men and women were reportedly imprisoned for same-sex activity in Dominica as recently as 2001” — What is the source of this, please? Pink News ???
Yes, Pink News.
Aw, come on! You want to be more credible than they are. Please do a little work to authenticate this.
I did a lot of work in 2016 when this language from an ICCPR shadow report
Statistics provided by the Criminal Records Office show that fifty (50) cases of buggery were reported between 2000 and 2010. There is no record of how many of these cases were between consenting adult men and as such this figure may represent non-consenting heterosexual, consenting heterosexual, non consenting same sex and consenting same sex buggery. For example, a 2010 Dominica News Online article on court room proceedings reports a 17 year old boy being charged with committing the act of buggery on a 9 year old girl.
ended up travelling from there to a Kaleidoscope report to ILGA’s annual report to a map in the Economist showing laws against same-sex activity actively enforced in Dominica.
Why is our imagination of Caribbean homophobia so eager to displace fact? As I said then, “We lose all credibility and harm our movements if we make human rights claims about our states and the sex we are complaining they are prosecuting is by adults with minors or is assault.”
Do verify this with Darryl and Maurice. I believe these arrests were before the Sexual Offences Act was reformed to allow such offences to be charged as unlawful connection.
And what do John Hart & Dennis Jay Mayer deciding to have sex in public in view of Dominicans in the Roseau port have to do with this case??? The constitutional litigation is not trying to make public sex legal, which I don’t believe it is where they lived in Palm Springs, CA (https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2019/06/12/couple-caught-neighbor-having-sex-palm-springs-community-pool-monday/1419197001/)
Thanks for that criticism and the correspondence that followed it. Because of you, the article now is better than before.
— Colin Stewart, editor/publisher of this blog