Not one, but three times in November and December, Guyana voted against LGBT Human Rights. On November 21, the UN General Assembly had to confirm the appointment of a Special Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI). The expert was agreed on in June and was appointed in September 2016. Guyana joined a number of African and Caribbean countries in November to oppose confirmation of the Special Rapporteur. If this shame was not enough, Guyana sided with a group of African countries that tried to suspend the appointment of the special rapporteur twice on December 19 and 23. Guyana’s vote on the LGBT Special Rapporteur is a repudiation of the commitment President Granger made in January 2016 that Guyana would take immediate steps to guarantee LGBT Rights.
The appointment of the Special Rapporteur on GAY Rights is a significant step forward in guaranteeing that GAY Rights are Human Rights and LGBT people are equal to any other citizen everywhere in the world. The Special Rapporteur is intended “to assess the implementation of international human rights law and current regulations regarding ways to overcome violence and discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity while best practices and gaps (of those international norms and laws) are identified.”
At the confirmation vote on November 21, 84 countries voted for the appointment of the Special Rapporteur, 77 against and 17 abstained. Guyana joined 7 other Caricom countries – Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname – in opposing the Special Rapporteur for Gay Right. Barbados, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago abstained. On December 19, 77 countries again voted in a second attempt to block the appointment of the Special Rapporteur, including Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia and St Vincent. On December 23, Guyana was the only Caricom country that joined the African countries in a third attempt to suspend the appointment of the Special Rapporteur on Gay Rights. While the majority of countries see the appointment as advancing the Human Rights of LGBT, the countries voting against the Special Rapporteur saw the move as appointing a “Gay Gestapo”.
Guyana’s vote on Gay Rights at the UN is consistently despicable over the years. I was Guyana’s representative in Uruguay in 2012 when we approved the Montevideo Consensus which promoted Gay Human Rights. Yet Guyana abstained when the UN adopted the Montevideo Consensus which, among other things, committed to remove all punitive laws against LGBT. I was ashamed then, as I am ashamed now. Incidentally, all efforts, even meek ones to remove punitive laws against LGBT, like the buggery laws, have been abandoned in Guyana.
Our despicable UN record is reflected by our stubbornness to repeal those laws that stigmatise, discriminate and criminalise LGBT in Guyana. We are one of five countries that can sentence a person in the LGBT community to death, for same-sex relations in the privacy of their homes and one among 73 countries around the world that can sentence persons to jail for more than 10 years for just being a part of the LGBT community.
Like other Caricom countries, Guyana has retained through saving-clause legislations the old, out dated and archaic laws that our British colonial masters imposed on our societies. In the meantime, the colonial masters have repealed their laws and accuse us of being hedonistic and uncivilised for retaining the laws they imposed on us. The UK repealed these laws since 1969. I am not a lawyer, but I will argue that because these laws remain parts of our compendium of laws through saving-clause legislation, the repealing in the mother land should also apply to us.
In the ninth and 10th Parliament Guyana placed the issue of decriminalisation of LGBT on the table. The 11th Parliament must not delay any further – we must act now. To say that the Government and political parties are constrained because the majority of the population are opposed to repealing these laws is a cop out. Our constitution guarantees every citizen equal rights. Government must not shirk its mandate to ensure all citizens, without exception, enjoy the full protection of the law. Our constitutions uphold our rights to religious freedoms, but also affirm fundamental rights and the dignity of the individual human being, declaring that all persons are equal before the law and entitled to non-discrimination; to freedom from interference with their privacy; and to freedom from unlawful attacks on their honour and reputation. Guyana is on the wrong side of history when it comes to our national and international posture on LGBT Human Rights.
