Georgetown : Fear of being persecuted and prosecuted has prevented a number of persons within the gay community from reporting crimes committed against them. This revelation comes as part of the findings uncovered by Christopher Carrico, a former lecturer of the University of Guyana. He undertook the study “Collateral Damage” in collaboration with the University of the West Indies’ Faculty of Law Rights Advocacy Project (U-RAP), to ascertain to what extent lesbians, gay men, bi-sexual and transgender persons are affected by existing laws.
In fact, based on Carrico’s findings, “most of our interviewees reported a number of injuries that were directly inflicted by the police and the courts, such as police harassment and abuse, arrest, prosecution and conviction of crimes.” The study revealed further that many crimes committed against sexual and gender minorities are enabled because perpetrators think they can act with impunity, or even believe that they are privately enforcing the law.
Members of the gay community, regardless of their class backgrounds, have claimed to have had direct encounters with the police that have to do with criminalisation of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Some have reported that they are harassed and abused by police; they are arrested or threatened with arrest; they are charged with the crimes of cross-dressing and loitering while others still are found guilty and given fines. “In the case of sodomy, we had no accounts of charges being pressed, but suspected buggery was sometimes reported, as a pretence, for arrest.”
It was pointed out that much like the findings in previous research into the topic in other settings like South Africa and the United States, “our research indicated that there were a series of very direct impacts of the continued existence of the laws against sodomy, same sex sexual activity, cross-dressing and loitering.”
The research project, which was ably assisted by Ms Arielle Gordon, Mr Vidyaratha Kissoon and Ms Sherlina Nageer – all Research Assistants, was able to deduce that the laws used to target homosexuals have an effect on the members of the gay community experiences. This, it was noted, goes well beyond the realm of law enforcement and the criminal justice system even impacting their access to employment and the manner in which sexual identities can be expressed at the workplace. It was revealed, too, that sanctions against those who express their sexual identities in the work environment could include loss of job, failure to be promoted, homophobic harassment and sexual harassment.
The impact on this sexual minority group extends to the acquisition of health and other social services the finding reveals. The result is that either because of direct discrimination or fear of stigma and discrimination members of this group are prevented from making use of these services. Further still, their access to public and private spaces, possibly apartments and homes, are impacted especially if their sexual identity was expressed. This, as a result, often results in this group being reluctant to express their sexuality.
Interviewees, according to the findings, frequently reported that they felt that the criminalisation of homosexuality placed considerable constraints on their ability to express their sexual orientation publicly and also constrained their ability to “come out” of the proverbial closet.
