Alexa Hoffmann (right), one of the three petitioners challenging two sections of Barbados’ Discriminatory Sexual Offences Act (SOA), speaking during yesterday’s press conference as Maurice Tomlinson (centre), Senior Policy Analyst at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network; and Senior Litigation Counsel, Yvonne Chisholm, look on.
Canadian High Commissioner Marie Legault (second from right), and other officials, at yesterday’s press conference to launch the filing of a petition against Barbados with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) challenging laws criminalising ‘buggery’ and other intimacy between consenting partners, including same-sex partners, as violating numerous rights guaranteed in the American Convention on Human Rights.
THREE Barbadians are challenging two sections of Barbados’ Discriminatory Sexual Offences Act (SOA).
Yesterday, a transsexual woman, a lesbian and a gay man filed a petition against Barbados before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), challenging laws criminalising “buggery” and other intimacy between consenting partners, including same-sex partners, as violating numerous rights guaranteed in the American Convention on Human Rights.
The IACHR is a principal and autonomous organ of the Organisation of American States (OAS), whose mission is to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere.
The challenge is focused on two sections of Barbados’ SOA: Section 9 and Section 12. Section 9 criminalises “buggery”, which the courts have confirmed means anal sex between men, but also a man and a woman. The maximum penalty is life in prison; it is the harshest buggery law in the hemisphere. Section 12 criminalises “serious indecency”, which is sweepingly defined in the SOA as an act by anyone “involving the use of the genital organs for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire”.
The maximum penalty is ten years in prison if the act is committed on or towards a person aged 16 or older; the penalty is higher in the case of a person under the age of 16. Even when seemingly neutral, there is a long history of indecency laws being used to target same-sex intimacy and LGBTQ people.
“With these laws, we have been stripped of the freedom to enjoy one of the most important aspects of any romantic relationship – intimacy,” said Alexa Hoffmann, one of the petitioners in the case and a trans Barbadian woman.
Speaking during a press conference held at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Law Faculty, yesterday, Hoffmann argued that many LGBTQ Barbadians face stigma, discrimination and abuse every day – which are deemed permissible and certainly exacerbated by the existence of the laws.
“I have seen many of my friends simply pack their bags and leave Barbados, even though our Constitution was designed to protect everyone as equals. These laws must be relegated to the dustbins of history,” Hoffmann added.
Meanwhile, Maurice Tomlinson, Senior Policy Analyst at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, who also attended the press conference, said that at their core, the laws violated human rights of all Barbadians, but they are overwhelmingly used to discriminate against LGBTQ people.
“Evidence also shows that these provisions, and the stigma and discrimination to which they contribute, undermine the access of transgender people, gay men and other men who have sex with men to critical HIV services including for testing, treatment, care and support.
“This undermines an effective response to HIV. We hope that the IACHR will recommend that the Government of Barbados repeal sections 9 and 12 of the SOA in their entirety, so as to decriminalise private consensual sexual activity between those above the legal age of consent,” the Senior Policy Analyst at the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network said.
The ultimate goal of the petition is to end the criminalisation of consensual sexual activity between persons above the age of consent, in particular the criminalisation of consensual sex between same-sex partners, and stop the state-sponsored homophobia they represent.
There is no timeline for a decision; however, petitions should be given priority by the IACHR as they concern fundamental rights and freedoms.
The Legal Network, along with Trans Advocacy and Agitation Barbados (TAAB) and the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Programme, is supporting the petition and providing technical assistance to the three petitioners. (AH)