The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), on Wednesday, issued its ruling on Section 76 – 79 of Jamaica’s 1864 Offenses Against the Person Act. Categorised under “Unnatural Crime“, Proof of ‘Carnal Knowledge’, and ‘Outrages of Decency’, the colonial-era law condemns violators to up to 10 years imprisonment, which may include hard labour. The ruling established that Jamaica’s laws criminalizing same-sex intimacy violate the rights of its LGBTQ+ citizens.
According to THEM, in 2011, two complainants — Gareth Henry and Simone Edwards — brought a petition to the IACHR seeking the human rights body to denounce the sodomy law. Henry was forced to seek asylum in Canada after he was reportedly beaten by a policeman and chased by a violent mob numbering 200 people, while Edwards was shot several times by an assailant who also tried to murder her family members. She has since fled to Europe but has suffered permanent kidney and liver damage as a result. According to Thomson Reuters Foundation, “Wednesday’s ruling said Jamaica’s law violated the rights of Henry and Simone Edwards – who fled to Europe after being shot multiple times outside her home – to human treatment, equal protection before the law, privacy and freedom of movement.”
“I’m overwhelmed with joy,” Gareth Henry, one of the claimants who is now a refugee in Canada, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Gays and lesbians continue to be killed and tortured because they are deemed to be different.”
“It’s a huge legal victory that’s relevant not only for Jamaica but for the entire region,” said Tea Braun, director of the Human Dignity Trust told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It is an important pressure point and hopefully it will accelerate the repeal of these laws,” she said, adding that the largely symbolic ruling would not lead to immediate change.
“Recognizing that decriminalization is not a magic wand, the commission called on Jamaica to gather data on violence and discrimination against LGBT and intersex people, train public officials on addressing such cases, and provide comprehensive sexuality education that is inclusive of sexual and gender diversity,” Human Rights Watch reports.
