Sri Lanka moves closer to repeal of its anti-gay law
Sri Lanka is moving decisively toward repeal of its anti-homosexuality law.
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The South Asian nation’s law against same-sex intimacy provides for a prison term of up to 10 years, but it is no longer enforced.
Last fall, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said his government would not oppose a private member bill to decriminalize homosexuality, but said official support would only happen if the bill gained public support.
Now Wickremesinghe says the government will support it. Worldwide, the number of nations with anti-homosexuality laws has dropped to 68.
However, the government has not changed its opposition to marriage equality.
The Washington Blade reported:
Sri Lanka government announces support for decriminalization bill
Leading activist group ‘very optimistic, but cautiously so’
By Michael K. Lavers
The government of Sri Lanka on Thursday said it supports a bill that would decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations in the country.
“There is a private member bill initiated by Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Government MP and attorney Premnath C. Dolawatte,” Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry told the Daily Morning, a Sri Lankan newspaper. “The government will support its position of decriminalizing same-sex relationships. We are, however, not legalizing same-sex marriages. But, we would decriminalize it. I think that there is a lot of consensus for that, so let that come to Parliament.”
Sections 365 and 365A of the Sri Lankan penal code criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations.
The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women last March published a decision that found the criminalization laws violated the rights of Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, executive director of Equal Ground, a Sri Lankan LGBTQ and intersex rights group.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe during a meeting with U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power that took place last September said his government will not oppose Dolawatte’s bill. The Daily Morning reported the U.S., the U.K., Canada and Norway have urged the government to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual relations.
Sri Lanka is a former British colony.
“We are very optimistic, but cautiously so,” Flamer-Caldera told the Washington Blade on Friday. “It’s been more than 19 years that our organization has been advocating for decriminalization and it’s good to see the work bearing fruit, finally. But it’s still a long road ahead.”
Neighboring India is among the former British colonies that have decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in recent years.
Lawmakers in Singapore last November repealed their country’s colonial-era sodomy law. Judges in 2022 also struck down criminalization statutes in St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda.
Uganda is working to stamp out groups promoting human rights for LGBTIQ people