Diaspora Gets Update On Initiatives To Help Caribbean LGBT People

By Neil Armstrong
Pride Contributing Writer

TORONTO, Ontario – One of the Caribbean’s leading LGBTI human rights activists wants to get rid of the notion that the region is the most homophobic place and says there are a lot of things happening on the ground to support LGBTI people.

Kenita Placide is the Eastern Caribbean coordinator at CariFLAGS (Caribbean Forum for Liberation and Acceptance of Genders and Sexualities) and co-executive director of United and Strong Inc., a human rights NGO representing marginalized groups in St. Lucia.

“One of the things that I think we need to do as the Caribbean and as the diaspora is to take out the notion that the Caribbean is the most homophobic place. It is not. We have a lot of issues to deal with; some of us are dealing with it at home but we need to take that out. We needed to take it out of the US, and take it out of Canada and out of Europe.”

She said as long as “we play into the negativity of the government and other political wills, we are actually allowing ourselves to dwell in it a bit more.”

Placide was one of the panelists at a forum entitled “Realizing the Dream of Caribbean LGBT Inclusion” held at The Chang School at Ryerson University on June 23.

It featured some of the Caribbean’s LGBTI human rights activists who were in the city to attend the WorldPride Human Rights conference held at the University of Toronto from June 25-27.

The other panelists were Yvonne McCalla-Sobers (Jamaica), Caleb Orozco (Belize) and Maurice Tomlinson (Jamaica) and the moderator was Debbie Douglas, executive director of the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI).

Tomlinson is a lawyer, LGBT activist and legal advisor to marginalized groups at AIDS-Free World, an international advocacy organization committed to speaking up for and with people affected by HIV and AIDS. McCalla-Sobers is the chair of Dwayne’s House, an initiative seeking to provide safe housing for LGBT youth who are currently living in sewers in Jamaica; and Orozco heads United Belize Advocacy Movement (UniBAM), the only lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy organization in the country.

Placide said there have been successful trainings in Jamaica, successful police trainings in St. Lucia, and the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground are moving things.

She is also the coordinator of the Alternate Women’s Secretariat of ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association and part of the Engaging Global Human Rights Project, which has been documenting people’s stories in the Caribbean.

So far, they have over 100 stories from across the Caribbean that speak to the stigma and discrimination they face.

“But the powerful thing about those stories is not just the stigma and discrimination they face but how they rise above it. How are they able to still exist in the country where most of them are invisible or are not accepted or don’t have all the rights?”

She said a lot of the work has to do with empowerment and capacity building; people have to be empowered to continue being support for other people that cannot be at the level that they are.

“We have to continue speaking for people that cannot speak for themselves but empower them enough to be able to speak for themselves at some point.”

Placide said the St. Lucia government didn’t take on her organization, United and Strong Inc. started in 2001, until 2009 when it did a presentation for the Constitution Reform Commission.

“I think persons understood it was not about moral policies. It was asking the government. It was asking the constitution committee to actually respect the dignity and the rights of every single citizen. If the law which is provided for all does not provide that then there are amendments to be done; simple as that.”

Placide said they followed up with a presentation to the Universal Periodic Review and then the government wanted to know about the organization and requested a meeting but the invitation was rebuffed.

Giving an update on legal matters, Tomlinson said AIDS-Free World and other organizations have started legal challenges to the anti-sodomy and anti-gay laws across the Caribbean.

Starting with challenging the anti-sodomy law in Belize; their case was heard in 2010 and they’re awaiting a judgment.

Tomlinson also challenged television stations in Jamaica that refused to air an advertisement, featuring himself and McCalla-Sobers, which called for respect of the rights of LGBT people.

He sued as a Jamaican claiming his right to freedom of expression and although they lost the case, the lawyer said the court acknowledged, for the first time, that even though the Charter does not reference LGBT people, the Charter must include LGBT people as a matter of course.

The human rights activist has also challenged the anti-sodomy law in Jamaica at the level of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG) later joined the initiative and they are waiting on the commission to rule on it.

He noted that its decision will not be binding but will only be a recommendation.

Tomlinson expects that the commission will recommend that the law be struck down because it violates the American Convention on Human Rights. The decision would refer to the 35 countries in the Americas.

There has also been a challenge of the immigration laws of Belize and Trinidad which ban the entry of homosexuals, even to visit.

They had a hearing on November 12 and had to get the court to give them permission to bring another hearing. The permission was granted, which Tomlinson said, is significant because the court said that the very existence of a law that bans the entry of homosexuals was evidence of some prejudice.

He said the governments of both countries argued that the law was not being enforced so it really doesn’t matter and why should they repeal it if it’s not affecting anybody. Tomlinson said the Trinidadian government noted that the law was necessary to keep out terrorists.

Regarding homeless LGBT youth living in sewers in Jamaica, the activist said they were being scraped up regularly and taken to the police station but the court ruled that they have a right to live in the sewers because it is a public space.

He has also filed a case challenging the anti-sodomy law within Jamaica under the constitution, acknowledging that it is a hard case to win because the “saving law clause” prevents, technically, any challenge to the anti-sodomy law domestically. Tomlinson said only parliament can change the law; the courts cannot find it unconstitutional.

In trying to answer the question, “why is Jamaica so homophobic?” Tomlinson said there are many reasons, one of which is the law, and another, the influence of evangelicals from North America, principally, that have helped to corrupt the Jamaican society and make it much more intolerant.

Not wanting to dwell on the ills but on solutions, he said there’s a lot being done such as public stands, letter-writing campaigns, and that more parents, politicians, and pastors are speaking up in support of LGBT rights but their voices need to be amplified as they are being drowned out by the evangelicals.

He noted that there are myriad other initiatives going on right now in Jamaica such as reports on the levels and drivers of homophobia in Jamaica. There will be a report soon on the economic impact of homophobia.

Speaking on what the Caribbean diaspora in Canada can do to help the situation back home, Tomlinson said though not wanting to leave out the non-Caribbean allies, he thinks that it is imperative that “we own the issue and try to resolve it ourselves.”

McCalla-Sobers spoke of her dream of inclusion and that Dwayne’s House is about the nightmare of exclusion.

She said the initiative was named after Dwayne Jones, a youth who was forced out of home at 14 years old, as are many gender non-conforming youth, and was killed by a mob when he went to a party dressed as a woman and someone pointed him out.

The aim of Dwayne’s House is to try to protect those youth who discover that they are gender non-conforming and who are thrown out of home by their parents.

The human rights activist said they are also forbidden to return to communities by those who threaten to shoot and beat them if they do.

“Those are the youth for whom I have, and hope you will have, the dream of inclusion. Right now, those youth live in a sewer; that’s their last place of refuge.”

A retired teacher, McCalla-Sobers said the youth need mental and physical health and wellbeing as at age 14 they are only being guided by each other and feel excluded. Some have been living on the streets for more than ten years.

She said having been thrown out at that age their education is interrupted and therefore they are not employable.

One of the ways that they survive is by doing sex work that earns more money without a condom than when a condom is used. It also results in them becoming vulnerable to HIV and AIDS.

“I need for them to be able to accept themselves; just accept who they are for what they are. To be able to know that they’re okay; they’re not demon-possessed as some of the churches genuinely believe that that is why they’re gay. They’re not bad pickney, they’re just human. That’s for them to know and that’s for us to help them to know, hey, you’re okay.”

She wants to see them exceed the limitations that have been placed on them, being the best that they can be rather than feeling that they are the throwaways.

McCalla-Sobers wants the law to be changed so that these youth can be protected and the harassment stopped.

She said patriarchy plays itself out in the expectation that a man is supposed to be macho and tough. If someone isn’t like that, they become targets of violence – stone throwing – evidenced in the broken legs and injuries that she has seen on these youth.

The very spirited presenter said when some Jamaicans say that sex is for procreation and procreation is within marriage, she opines “yeah, all of the 15 percent of the pickney who bawn within marriage, whappen to the 85 percent?”

She noted that the Jamaican constitution claims that a person is either male or female but someone needs to educate them that sex is not binary and there is much complication with sexuality on a continuum.

McCalla-Sobers also said that right now there is a wonderful myth spreading about how the gay community is powerful and she wished that it were true.

She noted that the youth don’t have the benefit of time because many of them have been abandoned, neglected, out of any kind of home setting. Some have been there for as long as ten years and almost every week there are new ones who join the group.

“Time is not on our side. My youth are angry, my youth are afraid; my youth are aggressive. My youth seh ‘ok, unnu don’t like me, well see mi here.’”

Highlighting small steps of progress, she said a decade ago when Human Rights Watch launched their report, Hated to Death, and asked J-FLAG to bring greetings, no one from the organization could be found who would allow their faces to be shown in a press conference.

“Today, the head of J-FLAG has moved from being a voice to being someone who can be on TV talk shows showing his face with name.”

McCalla-Sobers said last year LGBT youth were stoned at the Jamaica carnival and this year they were there again and danced with no stones thrown. The police were there to ensure their protection.

“Police used to assume that they (the youth) are the aggressors but now they understand that it is the youth that need protection,” she said.

Well-known Canadian playwright, actor and producer, Trey Anthony, will hold a fundraiser for Dwayne’s House at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto on July 23.

Focusing on the national, hemispheric and regional work that has been going on in the Caribbean, Orozco said the government of Belize would not acknowledge or engage in dialogue with UniBam in 2007.

However, that changed after the organization produced the shadow report for the Universal Periodic Review of 2009. It was the first time that the government acknowledged that there was an issue around the nation and its LGBT citizens.

Among its recommendations were: to de-criminalize consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex by repealing Section 53 of the Belize Criminal Code and to create a legal framework to safeguard the rights of sexual minorities, including amending the legislation on immigration and rape.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a process that involves a review of the human rights records of all UN member states.

Orozco said there is a leadership capacity issue which must be built in the region, in order to increase the visibility and the political engagement required.

UniBam has worked with the Latin American and Caribbean coalition at the Organization of American States (OAS) since 2008 that wrote the first LGBT resolution called “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.”

He noted that it was the first time CARICOM had condemned acts of violence against LGBT individuals. Since then, the coalition has been able to get approved a resolution every year.

“Part of the solution that we recognize is that there is leverage in the international community in the Americas. And, when you bring that leverage locally then politicians begin to listen.”

Orozco said what he has come to realize after eight years in this work is that, “the Caribbean does have a policy towards its LGBT citizens; it’s to be complicit by indifference in the action not to think about the needs of this population.”

WorldPride 2014 Toronto is a major international celebration incorporating activism, education, and the history and culture of global LGBTQI communities.

This was the first time that the celebration – a 10-day event – was held in North America and the fourth such festival in the world.