At the eleventh hour,
Jamaica, Guyana, Dominica and St. Kitts-Nevis withheld their support for a
resolution on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression (SOGI) just
before it was successfully passed by the
Organization of American States (OAS) in Antigua Guatemala on June 6th. Two
CARICOM states had done so earlier during negotiations; and another four
qualified their support at the last minute.
Since the first one passed in 2008, a resolution on
these issues had become an annual ritual in which every Caribbean state would
join at the General Assembly of the 35-member intergovernmental body that
helped pioneer the idea of international human rights. The Inter American human
rights system also has some of the strongest protections of any regional human
rights framework for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI)
persons, including a special unit of the Inter American Commission on Human
Rights, overseen by Jamaican Commissioner and First Vice Chair Tracy Robinson.
For the past two years, the SOGI resolution has urged states to do something
about its lofty words domestically. Now this year, ten CARICOM states have
flocked to attach reservations to it, some like Barbados, St. Lucia and
Trinidad & Tobago without any clear substance.
“Caribbean governments are totally willing to talk about
human rights, they want to give a good show on the issue, but they repeatedly
prove unreliable in giving any teeth to those ‘commitments’”, said Colin
Robinson, Secretary of the Caribbean Forum for Liberation and Acceptance of
Genders and Sexualities (CariFLAGS), a 16-year-old indigenous LGBTI network
which has recently set up offices in Castries, Kingston, Port of Spain and
Santo Domingo. “The creation of Caribbean societies was founded on the
persistent violation of human rights”, he said. “Post colonially,
Caribbean nations ought to be among the most visionary and eager champions of
human rights. But when it comes to letting our people be free to enjoy their
bodies with dignity, we’re clinging to pre-Emancipation practices, and proud to
remain at the bottom of the class in the Americas.”
Robinson was the very last speaker during the
Assembly’s June 3rd civil society dialogue with OAS Secretary General José
Miguel Insulza. “Mr. Secretary General, with all due respect”, he had
interrupted on behalf of his coalition, “Folks from the English-speaking
Caribbean asked two very specific questions, about the criminalization of our
humanity and our ability to be meaningfully included in this space and you
didn’t address either. Could you please?” Members of CariFLAGS have
participated for seven years in the OAS General Assembly, they had fought to
ensure English-speakers got the microphone during the June 3rd dialogue, and
his Guyanese colleague Zenita Nicholson of the Society Against Sexual
Orientation Discrimination had asked the two questions, reminding Insulza that
in the same forum the year before the group’s co-chair, Surinamese Tieneke
Sumter of Women’s Way Foundation, had asked if he was aware that eleven
Caribbean nations, all in the English-speaking Caribbean, violate human rights
by criminalizing private same-sex intimacy. Insulza had then promised political
dialogue on the issue, and the advocates wanted to know what he had done and
accomplished.
The Caribbean participants also complained bitterly
that the OAS has not done enough to ensure language access for
non-Spanish-speaking participants in civil society processes at its annual
general meeting and that its Human Rights Commission trainings are all in
Spanish, issues they had also raised in a letter to the organization.
More critically, the advocates including Jamaica’s
J-FLAG, St. Lucia’s United and Strong and Trinidad & Tobago’s CAISO
sounded three themes:
They united with people of African descent in calling
on OAS member states to adopt and ratify two landmark anti-discrimination
conventions focused on racism and other forms of discrimination and
intolerance. In introducing the conventions, Antigua & Barbuda, which
led the final drafting process, described the instruments as aspirational and
ambitious opportunities for states to “review and possibly amend their current
domestic legal frameworks, aligning them with protection standards that should
prevail in our region”, and make real democratic promises of “justice, equality
and the pursuit of happiness” by building the proverbial “current that can
sweep down even the mightiest walls of resistance”. The intolerance convention
addresses discrimination based on nationality, sexual
orientation, gender identity and expression, religion, cultural identity,
political opinions or opinions of any kind and genetic trait among others.
In a single voice with the 23-country Latin American
LGBTTTI Coalition working in the OAS, the Caribbean participants criticized the
weakness of human rights protection in their states, noting only two Caribbean
countries have independent national human rights institutions and that, unlike
the rest of the region, most Caribbean victims of human rights violations
cannot take cases for adjudication to regional or international forums, the
very structures needed by citizens in small, developing states with young
institutions. “Sexual citizenship is a bellwether of the Caribbean’s human
rights inequality”, they noted further.
They appealed for greater political dialogue within
the OAS about how far Caribbean states trail the rest of the region in
recognition of the rights and dignity of LGBTI citizens. And they repeatedly
urged Caribbean states to seek and accept offers of technical assistance in
implementing the commitments to human rights, sexual orientation and gender
identity they repeatedly undertook at General Assemblies over the past five
years. Lobbying Ricardo Kellman and Julia Hyatt, delegates from Barbados and
Jamaica respectively, who threatened to reopen the drafting of the sexual
orientation and gender identity resolution, they urged that some Caribbean
states cannot hold back the rest of the region or hemisphere from moving
forward on these issues.
“Homophobia affects us all, from growing anomie
and homelessness among LGBT youth on the streets of our capitals, to
heterosexual males’ persistent underachievement in our educational systems, to
how we rob our national productivity of the contributions of whole groups of
people”, the CariFLAGS participants said in a formal statement (attached).
Links
OAS General Assembly Resolution AG/RES. 2807 (XLIII-O/13): Human
Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity and Expression (Adopted at the fourth plenary
session, June 6, 2013): http://scm.oas.org/ag/documentos/Documentos/AG06190E05.doc
InterAmerican Convention Against All Forms
of Discrimination and Intolerance:http://scm.oas.org/ag/documentos/Documentos/AG06187E04.doc
Video
CariFLAGS engages Sec. Gen. Insulza
(Zenita Nicholson 01;54:04 to 01:36:04; Colin Robinson 02:42:36 to 02:44:05):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuLgfc4gRgo&list=PLkh9EPEuEx2v6pkIb-NaEwMuYoQPIQr_a
Antigua & Barbuda Alternative
Representative Ann-Marie Layne Campbell introduces the InterAmerican
Conventions Against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance and Racism,
Racial Discrimination, and Related Forms of Intolerance:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0YwjKtf8Q&list=PLkh9EPEuEx2v6pkIb-NaEwMuYoQPIQr_a (00:20:00
to 00:26:08)
 |
| Caleb Orozco, Executive President, UNIBAM, Belize "English Questions too!!!" Mr. Secretary General |
 |
| Zenita Nicholson, Secretary, Board of Trustees , SASOD, Guyana with questions for the Secretary General |
 | |
|
 |
| The Caribbean representation at the OAS. From left: Tieneke Sumter, Women's Way Foundation- Suriname, Jaevion Nelson, JFLAG- Jamaica, Adarryl Williams, United and Strong - St Lucia, Caleb Orozco, UNIBAM -Belize, Colin Robinson, CAISO - Trinidad & Tobago and Zenita Nicholson, SASOD - Guyana
Photo link:
|
Antigua & Barbuda Perm. Rep. to the OAS HE Deborah-Mae Lovell signs the Inter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Related Forms of Intolerance: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oasoea/8970479664/
HELPING
EACH OTHER STRENGTHEN HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CARIBBEAN
Caribbean
LGBT Citizens Call on Our Governments to Seek and Offer Technical Support and Cooperation in Domestic Implementation of Commitments Undertaken in OAS SOGI Resolutions
Colonial development of Caribbean societies was
founded on the persistent violation of human rights. These histories have given way to aspirational
nationalist visions of inclusion, equality, autonomy and human dignity, and
modern Caribbean nations ought to be among the most visionary and eager
champions of human rights.
But we are not. Formal recognition and protection of human
rights and personal dignity remain weak in most nations across the region. In
several, Constitutional provisions protect colonial laws from legal challenge.
Only two states have independent national human rights institutions, neither
compliant with Paris Principles; just four have fully ratified the First
Optional Protocol of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights;
only five are party to the American Convention on Human Rights, and just two
accept the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court. Boasts of democracy and
rule of law are vitiated by lack of access to justice for people who are poor
and vulnerable. In restricting citizen access to supranational human rights
adjudicating mechanisms, young postcolonial states – still developing national
institutions, expanding social protection and building consensus on shared
humanity after centuries of its denial to the majority of the population –
deprive their peoples of the protection of frameworks designed expressly to
backstop state weaknesses or negligence. For rights bearers in such
small-island developing societies, especially those who are minorities,
violations and related impunity effect multiple ruptures to safety, dignity and
livelihood.
Sexual citizenship is a bellwether of the Caribbean’s
human rights inequality. We
trail the rest of the hemisphere in recognition of the humanity and rights of
LGBT persons as well. Eleven of our nations still criminalize private
same-sex relations between consenting adults, and several have expanded this
beyond the colonial laws we inherited. Sexual orientation has been deliberately
excluded from post-Independence protection measures.
Homophobia affects us all, from growing anomie and homelessness among
LGBT youth on the streets of our capitals, to heterosexual males’ persistent
underachievement in our educational systems, to how we rob our national
productivity of the contributions of whole groups of people. Our sister
states in Latin America share rank with the Global North in political
leadership and domestic institutionalization of LGBT equality and human rights.
Meeting in Brasilia in April with Cuba to forge a regional perspective on
how to advance sexual orientation and gender identity in multilateral
human rights systems, they emphasizedstrengthened dialogue and
cooperation mechanisms, including South-South and triangular ones, according to
countries’ needs, to allow for sharing of good practices and incremental
political changes.
On
the occasion of our joint participation in the XLIII General Assembly of the
Organization of American States, in Antigua Guatemala in June 2013, we appeal
for a new partnership:
1. to fully support the 2013
resolution on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity/expression
2. to approve, ratify and
bring into force in domestic law the Inter-American Convention against
All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance jointly
with theInter-American Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination,
and Related Forms of Intolerance
3. to request, receive and,
where appropriate, provide technical cooperation from hemispheric and other
partners in implementing domestic measures that fulfil the commitments of the
suite of resolutions on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity
enacted at the General Assembly
4. to strengthen domestic
human rights education programmes and institutions, and build national cultures
of human rights and plural citizenship
5. to take significant steps
to more fully join and to strengthen the Inter-American human rights system
6. to convene a CARICOM forum
to engage with dialogue and cooperation on these issues.
We are the Caribbean Forum for Liberation and
Acceptance of Genders and Sexualities. Our 16-year old
non-governmental body, owned and operated by the region’s leading LGBT
NGOs, is a regional network with offices in Castries,
Kingston, Port of Spain and Santo Domingo and leadership in Suriname. In
advancing an indigenous LGBT agenda for the Caribbean, we engage with
regional governments and civil society, donors and international partners — to
expand protective environments at the community-level where Caribbean LGBT
people can enjoy safety and support and be linked to services, community,
health, spirituality and empowerment; to build local LGBT infrastructure and
leadership; to forge alliances, participate politically and electorally,
influence policy and legislation; to utilize judicial and human rights
institutions to ensure justice and access to the fruits of citizenship;
and to build nations that reclaim the values
of our Independence generation.
DECLARATION
OF THE COALITION OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRAVESTI, TRANSEXUAL, TRANSGENDER
AND INTERSEX PERSONS FROM THE AMERICAS
BEFORE THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE OAS
LA
ANTIGUA GUATEMALA, GUATEMALA, JUNE 4th, 2013
Mister Secretary General,
Honourable Ministers, Representatives of Official Delegations, Civil Society
Colleagues:
We, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Travesti, Transsexual, Transgender and Intersex (hereinafter LGBTTTI)
organizations, convened in Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala, from May 31st to
June 2nd, 2013,
in accordance with the
directives established by the OAS General Assembly in Resolutions AG/RES.2092
(XXXV-O/05); CP/RES.759 (1217/99); AG/RES.840 (1361/03) through the resolutions
AG/RES.1707(XXX-O/00) and AG/RES.1915(XXXIII-O/03), which set forth a
regulatory framework to enhance and strengthen civil society participation in
the OAS and in the Summit of the Americas process, would like to express that:
The policies of
repression and criminalization of drug possession for personal
consumption have led to human rights violations of
vulnerable groups. Decriminalization and a
fresh perspective on this reality will
reduce discrimination, resulting in processes of social
inclusion and democratic guarantees.
In the countries
of Central America, organized crime groups are
controlled by neither the police nor any other arm of the state,
which promotes citizen insecurity.
In this context,
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity has increased,
with acts of verbal and physical violence, torture, cruel and inhuman
treatment, forced disappearances, and killings as the extreme expression of
such violence.
Trans persons are
among those most affected by these attacks. They are also
denied their right to health, to education and to work, in
short, to dignity. Lack
of documents recognizing the gender identity that
trans persons have adopted and constructed, or
conditioning their issuance on humiliating medical
procedures, constitutes an insurmountable limit on
their access to rights.
Low self-esteem among
lesbian women, caused by a patriarchal system that ignores
and stigmatizes them, makes them vulnerable to problems related
to mental health, addictions, domestic violence, and also
limits their access to comprehensive health care. In
the“English-speaking” (Commonwealth) Caribbean, this same
system pushes LGBTI youth into homelessness and
young heterosexual men to under performance in school.
Eleven Caribbean countries
– one third of the states in the Americas – continue to retain laws that
criminalize and prohibit consensual same-sex intimacy, crossdressing “for an
improper purpose”, as well as entry of foreigners based on their homosexuality.
Some of these governments have very recently enacted or enforced such laws;
others deliberately exclude LGBT persons from protections against
discrimination.
In these contexts, access
to justice and the mechanisms of human rights
protection are weak, Constitutional protection excludes sexuality,
access to supranational human rights defence mechanisms is limited,
and Caribbean governments have declared that human rights protection
of sexual minorities requires a "political
mandate" of the majority.
Nonetheless, in this
context we welcome the conclusion of the negotiations on
the draft Inter-American Convention against All Forms of
Discrimination and Intolerance, and appreciate the leadership
role of the delegation of Antigua and Barbuda.
Therefore we demand that the Member States:
1.
Sign, ratify and implement the Convention Against All Forms of
Discrimination and Intolerance, as well as the Inter-American
Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Related Forms
of Intolerance.
2.
Adopt legislation and policies in line with
the commitments made in the
resolutions "Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and
Gender Identity" adopted by previous General Assemblies.
3.
Create or strengthen Human Rights
Institutions and implement educational programs that develop a
culture of human rights and pluralistic society.
4.
Take measures to ensure access to justice
and guarantee due process of the persons without
discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
5.
Adopt comprehensive and specific health
strategies for LGBTI persons, with a
particular emphasis on the different needs of trans persons.
6.
Review their legislative frameworks by repealing
laws that criminalize sex between people of the same sex.
7.
Adopt laws that recognize the gender
identity of trans persons.
8.
Promote direct participation of LGBTI
persons and civil society groups in dialogues,
consultations, policy design and planning at national
and local levels.
9.
Adopt the Inter-American human
rights instruments.
As well, we demand that the General Assembly:
-Adopt the draft resolution "Human Rights, Sexual
Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression" presented
by the delegation of Brazil, whose initiative is appreciated;
2. - Adopt the draft resolution "Inter-American
Convention against All Forms of Discrimination and
Intolerance"
3. - Adopt the draft resolution "Inter-American
Convention against Racism, Racial Discrimination, and
Related Forms of Intolerance."
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