QUITO, ECUADOR: In testimony before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), AIDS-Free World’s Sarah Bosha delivered a forceful denunciation of the anti-sodomy provisions in Jamaica’s Offenses Against the Persons Act, arguing that the Colonial-era law is instrumental in the spread of the HIV epidemic in the Caribbean region and violates the American Convention on Human Rights, which Jamaica ratified in 1978.
The Offenses Against the Persons Act criminalizes same-sex intercourse between males (punishable by 10 years in prison with hard labor) as well as “any act of gross indecency” by a male with another male (punishable by two years in prison).
“The law creates a hostile and homophobic environment in public health centers, making these spaces and the health services inaccessible to LGBT people,” said Bosha, who is Legal Research Policy Adviser on HIV and Human Rights for AIDS-Free World.
She noted that the rate of infection among men who have sex with men is 28 to 30 percent, the highest in the Caribbean region. The HIV prevalence among gay and bisexual adolescent boys is estimated to be 14 percent, and HIV prevalence in transgender adolescents is estimated to be 27 percent, appalling numbers that point to a public health crisis on the island.
Bosha—along with Samir Varma with the law firm Thompson Hine and Maurice Tomlinson of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network—appeared before the Commission on behalf of two Jamaicans (a gay man and a transgender woman) who suffered extreme abuses because of the anti-sodomy law, forcing them to flee Jamaica and seek asylum abroad. The petitioners were identified as A.B. and S.H.
AIDS-Free World filed the petition before the IACHR in 2011.
“The anti-sodomy law drives LGBT people underground and away from essential HIV testing and treatment services,” Bosha argued before the Commission. The law “prevents effective treatment, care, and supporting services for gay people in state-run public health centers” and “legitimizes and permits homophobic attitudes by health care workers.”
Both petitioners, Bosha noted, described how homophobic attitudes made it difficult for them to access HIV services.
She quoted Petitioner A.B., who described fleeing from a free government clinic in the face of open hostility:
“I went for my first and only HIV test at a public health clinic in Jamaica. … At the clinic I was met with hostile stares and jeers by the clinic staff and patients. I saw patients in the waiting area and nurses pointing and laughing at me while I sat for about an hour to be called for the test. … The nurse handed me a questionnaire to complete. Among other things it had questions about my previous sexual partners. I was afraid to fill it out truthfully because I had only ever had sex with men, which is a crime in Jamaica. Completing the questionnaire would be admitting that I broke the law and could spend up to 10 years in prison. I also did not want to expose myself to further ridicule by admitting that I was gay. So, when the nurse was not looking, I quickly gathered my belongings and left.”
Bosha cited a Global Fund report on Jamaica from 2019, which noted a “common society-based stigma” against key and vulnerable populations, “limiting disclosure of sexual orientation for men who have sex with men and other LGBTI populations” and impeding “the likelihood of testing for HIV.”
The anti-sodomy law, she continued, “effectively criminalizes the development of public health interventions designed to encourage safe sex practices among sexual minorities.”
Jamaica’s Ministry of Health conceded as much in its National Integrated Strategic Plan for Sexual Reproductive Health Policy, which said that the anti-sodomy law “makes the promotion and facilitation of safer sexual practices among MSM [men who have sex with men] an act which goes against the law.”
In 2018, Dr. Christopher Tufton, the Jamaican Minister of Health, lamented that Jamaica was failing to meet its “90-90-90” targets—which call for 90 percent of Jamaicans to know their HIV status, 90 percent of all Jamaicans with diagnosed HIV infection to receive sustained antiretroviral therapy, and 90 percent of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy to have viral suppression.
In conclusion, Bosha argued that “in order to address the inability of sexual minorities to access mental health and other health services, it is imperative that the anti-sodomy law be repealed. For as long as the law remains, homophobia will remain firmly entrenched in Jamaican society, making it impossible to achieve the right to health within the country.” The disastrous consequence is the spread of HIV.
AIDS-Free World awaits the IACHR decision, looking forward to a favorable outcome.
# # #
Media contact:
Peter Duffy
AIDS-Free World