A local human rights activist says decriminalising same-sex relations between consenting adults can benefit Jamaica.

Local LGBT advocacy group, the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG) insists that decriminalising same-sex relations between consenting adults will lift a major burden off Jamaica’s legal system.

Associate Director of J-FLAG, Glenroy Murray is calling for legislative changes to be made for the protection of Jamaican men, women and children who may fall victim to sexual violence.

He says making changes to the law goes beyond facilitating same-sex relations and argues that holding on to the buggery law in an attempt to stop gay sex is doing far greater damage.

“There is a need to fix laws which say if you are raped by a man and you are a man, you won’t get equal protection as if you were a woman who was raped by a man and if you are a woman who is raped anally, you won’t get equal protection as if, compared to a woman who was raped vaginally. There’s some significant challenges within our laws around sexual violence primarily because buggery has been placed as an untouchable law and so it hurts and based on our research, it hurts women and children more than it hurts members of the LGBT community. That’s something that needs to be fixed,” he said. 

Mr. Murray’s comments are in light of J-FLAG releasing a manifesto in February titled The Gay Agenda: Reimagining LGBT Jamaicans.

J-FLAG says the term “Gay Agenda” has historically been a “slur used to describe some secretive and sinister plot by the local gay community to up-end society and destroy its very fabric.

The advocacy group says naming the manifesto the Gay Agenda reclaims the phrase.

Speaking specifically to the ‘Security and Justice’ section of the manifesto, the Associate Director says J-FLAG would like to see an amendment of laws against sexual violence, including the buggery law. 

He says currently members of the LGBT community aren’t taken seriously when reports of violence are made to local law enforcement.

He says “when they report Instances of violence and discrimination they are not necessarily taken seriously by the security forces as well as there are significant challenges within the justice system and within the legal framework overall that deny them access to rights that have been granted the other Jamaicans and so If you, when you read ‘Security and Justice’, you have to read it with the second section that comes right after which is LGBT Jamaicans and the law. Two of them paint a clear picture of the legal and policy challenges faced by the community, as well as the implementation based challenges.”

Between 2011 and 2017, J-FLAG received 261 unconfirmed reports of rights violations.

Among those were 115 reports of targeted attacks, two reports of violent robbery, four reports of sexual abuse, 8 reports referring to targeted murders, 20 reports of displacement involving violence, 69 threats of violence including death threats, one report of an unlawful arrest, five reports of police inaction when a victim reported a crime and three reports of police extortion on the basis of a threat to charge the victims with buggery.

Associate Director of J-FLAG, Glenroy Murray, says the advocacy group wants to see an end to laws justifying homophobic and transphobic violence repealed. He says doing so will encourage more Jamaicans, specifically those within the LGBT community, to report acts of violence.

He explained that in Jamaican law, there’s a defence called provocation which J-FLAG believes does not favour women or homosexual men.“If someone does something that makes you lose control in the way a reasonable man would then you could get off for murder so you wouldn’t get murder you would get a lesser conviction of voluntary manslaughter that one of the grounds for, just for provocation is homosexual advance. So there is case law both in Jamaica and the Commonwealth that says that if a man approaches another man with sexual connotation and then that man loses control and kills the man who approached him, then he would get off for murder. It is highly problematic particularly if you look at the fact that in Jamaica, men harass women sexually all the time and women do not necessarily have this kind of defence if they kill in return.”

Attorney-at-law Christopher Harper says The Gay Agenda is “the first step” to any conversation around the repealing of the buggery law.

He says it’s a comprehensive framework put forward by Jet to indicate their beliefs and desires.

“In terms of this documentation itself, it’s a manifesto so it’s pretty much a vision. It’s a plan, it’s an idea. It’s the first step to any serious conversation. So they clearly laid out their objectives, they clearly laid out their intentions and I think it takes much more on-the-ground advocacy, much more lobbying, advising, activism to actually get any form of momentum, but I think this is just a comprehensive framework to say these are the things that we believe. Vulnerable groups like LGBT persons should be afforded,” said Harper. 

Mr. Harper also says the manifesto presents Jamaica’s LGBT community in a new light.

“I actually think it’s quite progressive given all that has been attempted thus far for the LGBT community in Jamaica I realize that they’ve decided to take a new approach because I think most Jamaicans are accustomed to hearing the usual argument around amending the buggery law trying to transform how the Constitution protects vulnerable populations. So I think this actually takes the conversation beyond that which most Jamaicans are accustomed to hearing.”

Meanwhile J-FLAG says local police aren’t enforcing their policies. The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) Policy on Diversity, stipulates that “all reports from any individual or group be handled in a manner which reflects the highest level of professionalism and respect for human rights and dignity.”

Despite this, Associate Director of J-FLAG, Glenroy Murray, says members of the LGBT community are fearful of reporting incidents to law enforcement for fear of discrimination.

Mr. Murray says the advocacy group hopes to change this through conversation and sensitization sessions with the police.

“What we’re hopeful for is through a continued interaction with them because the security forces and through the continued building of relationships, sensitization efforts that we’ll be able through those kinds of conversations to get members of the police.to understand the need to enforce the policy but also I think with all policy frameworks, there’s a need to strengthen accountability mechanisms and that’s what that’s about and so it may mean therefore that when there are incidences of inaction you have to take the matters beyond just an interaction between an individual and a police officer and send it into the relevant individuals an oversight bodies that exist and we will do that where person who Is involved is comfortable doing so because of course that’s something we must factor.”