St. Lucia: Flavia Cherry, head of Caribbean Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), will tackle the issues of homosexuality and support the United Nation’s calls for the abolishment of laws governing buggery and prostitution in the Caribbean, according to a report in the St. Lucia Star. The aim is that the changes to the laws would be made by the year 2015.
UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS to the Caribbean, Dr. Edward Greene, noted that at least 20 percent of some in Caribbean countries are gays, a cultural shift that must be considered.
The UN has stated that Caribbean countries, faced with potential political and religious fall-out, plan to take a regional approach in scrapping laws against buggery and prostitution by 2015 as they strive to achieve their Millennium Development Goals.
Greene is quoted as saying that those laws force vulnerable communities like commercial sex workers and Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) to go underground and so being unable to access HIV education, diagnosis care and treatment, the St. Lucia Star report said.
Greene says the Caribbean plans to take a two-pronged approach to the situation, and will include rallying support from Champions for Change, faith-based organizations and women’s groups, and on the premise that regional laws are more easily acceptable.
According to the Star report, Cherry said, “At the end of the day we are all human and entitled to human rights in exactly the same manner. We all have those inalienable rights to exist and have the autonomy of self. As long as there are discriminatory laws . . . we need to move with the times . . . We have to accept that we live in a plural society. There is a lot of diversity and you have people who have all kinds of preferences. We cannot pretend that this is not our reality. We cannot pretend that there are no sex workers. We cannot pretend that there are no men who have sex with men. We cannot pretend that there are not women who have sex with women. We cannot pretend that these things exist in other places and we as a society are ‘nice and well-behaved’ so we need to keep it criminal.”
The Caribbean has been getting increased negative attention because of the stance of some countries on the issue laws against homosexuality, the Star report stated.
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