RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Homosexuals Face Uphill Struggle for Legal Protection

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, May 12 2001 (IPS) - Leroy will never forget the beating he got from neighbours when he was 14 years old. Now a 26-year-old professional chef, he recalls how he and another boy had been caught having sex.

“I stopped to put my clothes on and that saved my life,” he said explaining that, fully dressed, he was able to make his way out of the community in search of refuge.

The years haven’t dulled the memory of being beaten across the back, nor of his neighbours’ cries for his blood. Sometimes, he can still hear them screaming, “Kill the boy!”

That was just the beginning of Leroy’s ordeal. He was caught and beaten every time he left the house for the next four years. The only reprieve, he said, was the four months he spent sleeping in abandoned buildings.

Desperately poor with 10 children and nowhere to go, his mother was forced to remain in the community until Leroy reached the age of 18 and had obtained skills with which to earn a living.

Leroy, who asked not to be identified by his last name, also learned to avoid some of the beatings by cooking and baking for his tormentors, most of who were unemployed. But he could get over neither his mother’s scorn nor his brothers and sisters’ ridicule. He remembers his mother sitting him down and reading to him passages from the Bible that condemned his homosexuality.

“She then went out and bought me my own cup, plate and things and from then on, I couldn’t use any utensils other than those she bought specifically for me,” he said.

Leroy is not alone. According to the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians and Gays (JFLAG), many men have been killed for alleged homosexuality. Gay women are not exposed to the same degree of intolerance, an organisation source explained, because men are stimulated by fantasies about female-to-female sex acts. Nevertheless, hostility toward gay men and lesbians is such that the JFLAG source would only speak on condition of anonymity.

The group acknowledged that its security procedures mean that many people who might need its services don’t know how to reach it. All the same, the organisation is gearing up to lobby for a Constitutional amendment acknowledging the human rights of homosexuals and legislation to protect them from job and other forms of discrimination.

The road ahead will not be easy, the JFLAG source said. Popular anti-gay sentiment has prompted a number of politicians to discard their traditional silence on the issue with hostile statements designed to appease constituents.

Prime Minister Percival Patterson’s government last year ruled out changes in laws perceived as discriminatory toward homosexuals. Under Jamaican law, for example, gay men can be arrested and charged with buggery if they are caught in the act.

Adding to the antipathy is the widespread notion that HIV/AIDS primarily is a homosexuals’ disease.

The health ministry reports that of 5,099 Jamaicans diagnosed with AIDS since 1982, only 2.6 percent have been gay men and 3.6 percent, bisexual men. However, health officials said violence against homosexual men likely has resulted in caused under- reporting of the disease among the group they refer to as “men who have sex with men”. Twenty-five percent of Jamaicans with AIDS are listed as being of unknown sexual orientation.

The obstacles to reform may be many but for men like Devon, Mark and Steve, the stakes are high.

Devon, beaten in his inner-city neighbourhood and spurned from an early age, turned to the only potentially supportive institution of which he knew, the church. There, he said, “They make you feel guilty, as if you are wicked.”

Steve also laid at the church’s feet some of the blame for persistent discrimination. Homosexuality is simply not tolerated and many pastors believe that homosexuality is demon possession and nastiness, he said. A senior church officer and head of the youth choir, the 26-year-old was forced out after news of his homosexuality began to spread.

Mark, a young media worker, said social pressure and the fear of ostracism or of losing a job drives many gay men to do what is expected of them by getting married and having children. Devon, who is 34 years old, HIV-positive and the father of two children, agreed.

RIGHTS-JAMAICA: Homosexuals Face Uphill Struggle for Legal Protection

By Zadie Neufville Reprint | | Print |

Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, May 9 2001 (IPS) - Leroy will never forget the beating he got from neighbours when he was 14 years old. Now a 26-year-old professional chef, he recalls how he and another boy had been caught having sex.
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