The Treatment of gay people in Jamaica and those perceived to be Gay

Edited by Jay, PCS proud Black Members Rep

“I wanted to share with you the report from the Human Rights Groups and edited down to make it easier to read and also more interesting for people. Please be aware that homophobia of this kind happens all over the world and Jamaica should not be singled out. This is an observation of what is going on and it would be good if the country acknowledges it and then changes it but cannot come about without the changing of the law first and then the change of the hate and discrimination laws. All forms of discrimation based upon sex, colour, race, creed, gender, disability or sexuality orientation is wrong no matter where it is coming from. Race discrimination is not higher or more important than homophobia.” Jay October 2005

Fred L., thirty, described the incident as follows:
Me and another guy were sitting on the beach . . .While we were there, some little teenager was on the beach swimming, and Victor, the guy that was killed, was standing looking at the boy.

The boy said, "Why are you looking me like that? You a battyman." Two rastamen38 said, "Every day they come on the beach to look at men, battyboy them."

Two policemen and a female police officer were there. The two male officers started to beat the man with batons. I turned to the female officer and asked, “What has he done wrong?” She turned to me and said, "Everyday me have to warn people about this guy coming on the beach. I'm going to lock him up.” I said, “For what?” She didn't say. I said to her, “If he did something wrong, lock him up, don't beat him.”

[Victor] started to run from the two male officers toward the Old Fort Craft Market. The two policemen said, "Beat him because him a battyman."

Dennis M., twenty, lived in Montego Bay. He told Human Rights Watch:
Police always harass me. . . . They stop you and hear you talk a bit
feminine [and ] they ask you personal questions like are you top or
bottom and like that. . . . The last time this happened . . . two police came over and said “Battymen mus’ dead. You should be under the ground. You should not be living in Jamaica.” Not every police officer does that. Some police officers say it is not legal so you should curtail your behavior. But most of them, once they hear you talk feminish they begin to bitch [verbally abuse] you and a crowd comes around.

Nicholas C., twenty-nine, was stopped by the police while walking down the street one evening in April 2004. The police asked him if he was a battyman and searched him.

After finding condoms, lubricant, and gel, they became violent. “They said, ‘You a battyman. Battyman mus’ dead. Run before I shoot you.’” The police beat Nicholas C., hit him with batons, kicked him, and scattered his things on the ground.

Several gay men reported that police abuse accelerated violence by others. Albert B., thirty-three, and his friends had been attacked by Kingston police a few days before Human Rights Watch met with him in June 2004. The police beat Albert B. and his
friends, threw stones at them, called them “battymen,” “faggot,” and “nasty men” and drew their guns at them. The police actions drew the attention of other men, who came and beat them with boards, crying out “battymen.”

Peter T., nineteen, was walking on the street with friends late in the evening of December 25, 2003. A police car drove by, and the policemen inside yelled, “Battymen, go home.” When Peter T.’s friend told the police to leave them alone, the police
stopped their car, beat the men, then put them in the police car and drove them to another part of town. As they let the men out of the car, the police yelled, “Battymen, battymen, beat them,” and fired their guns in the air. This attracted the attention of a
crowd of men armed with machetes, who followed the police instruction and beat them.

For Harold B., the public humiliation by police that incited others to violence was worse than physical attacks. “The worst thing is when police embarrass you whenever they see
you in a crowd. When I’m walking on the street, the police yell, ‘battyboy, you catch men.’ When they do that, people start to look at you and some want to attack you.”

For Harold B., the public humiliation by police that incited others to violence was worse than physical attacks. “The worst thing is when police embarrass you whenever they see
you in a crowd. When I’m walking on the street, the police yell, ‘battyboy, you catch men.’ When they do that, people start to look at you and some want to attack you.”

Police abuse of gay men extends to men living with HIV/AIDS, whom they assume
must be gay. Paul M., forty, told Human Rights Watch that in 2003, he was with a friend who had AIDS when the police approached and asked:
“Eh boy, how you look so, w’happen to you?” The person say, “I have AIDS and I want to take my medication.’ Police say, “you must be battyman. Eh boy, eh boy, move your AIDS self from here. Mind me turn mi gun pon yuh and kill you. [Watch out because I might turn my gun on you and kill you.]”

Jamaica’s sodomy laws criminalize consensual homosexual conduct between adult men, prohibiting the “abominable crime of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal” and “gross indecency.”50 “Buggery,” which generally refers to all acts of anal intercourse and bestiality, is a felony punishable by imprisonment with hard labor for up to ten years.51 “Gross indecency,” generally interpreted to mean any sexual intimacy between men short of anal intercourse, is a misdemeanor punishable by up to two years with hard labor.

(THESE ARE THE LAWS THAT WERE IN THE UK BUT WERE REPEALED IN LATE 1960S JAMAICA DID NOT FOLLOW SUIT AND KEPT THESE OUTDATED LAWS – JAY

Allen C., twenty-two, said that he was arrested and charged with buggery after someone reported to the police having observed him having sex with another man.

He was taken to the police station, where police officers urged him to confess to a charge of buggery while beating him with a stick and chanting “buggery fi dead” [people who commit buggery should be killed].

The police told him that he would be examined by a doctor in the rape unit to see if he was the receiving partner in anal intercourse. He was placed in a jail cell, where he was cursed out as a “battyman” by other inmates. When he was released to the custody of his mother, the police ensured that the abuse would continue:
when Allen C. left the station, they announced the charges to people outside.

Women who have sex with women are also targeted for arrest because of homosexual
conduct.

Lillie P., thirty-six, told Human Rights Watch that she was arrested while parked in a car with her girlfriend on December 31, 2002. “On New Year’s Eve, myself and my girlfriend went to a lovers’ spot after a party. There were a lot of other cars there, but the police approached us.”

The police called Lillie P. and her girlfriend “dirty lesbians,” threatened to charge the women with indecent and lewd exposure and asked them for money.

When the women refused to offer a bribe, the police arrested them
and took them to the Portmore police station. At the station, the police superintendent told the women that they were not going be charged, but that their names would be recorded in a register.

“It was scary at first because at this point I was not out to my
parents and I was going to start a job soon and I was afraid that it was going to jeopardize it. I was concerned for my girlfriend . . . She works for [a government ministry] and could suffer problems if they find out she is gay.”

Several gay men told Human Rights Watch that police demanded money from them and arrested or beat them when they refused to pay. Harold B. recalled being stopped twice by police in 2004 and accused of having sex with another man. On one occasion,
Harold B. and a friend were arrested and threatened with a charge of buggery after they refused to pay money to police. They were taken to the police station, where, after being questioned by the arresting officers’ superior, they were ultimately released.

The sodomy laws are used to silence MSM, to keep them in check.

They allow criminal acts to be committed against MSM with impunity.

People know—thieves, crooks, layabouts—that if they commit a crime against you, they can play the “battyman card” to silence you. I’ve seen this in my cases. And this builds on the perception that gay men are saps, not only because they’re effeminate, but because their vulnerability is supported by state institutions—police, courts—that don’t protect them.

Police failure to provide protection from violence and abuse

We haven’t had any reports about violence against homosexuals. Most of the violenceagainst homosexuals is internal. We never have any cases of gay men being beaten
up. I know that there is a sort of revulsion against homosexuals, lesbians, but evidence does not substantiate that there is any level of violence perpetrated against them.
— K.K. Knight, senior superintendent of police, Kingston, June 18, 2004

If you make a police report, they start by making you instead of the victim the person that is wrong. The police ask, ‘Why all of a sudden they calling you a battyman?

How do they know you a battyman?’ These kinds of questions trivialize the problem.
— Adrian S., thirty, Kingston, June 13, 2004

The night before Lawrence O.’s interview with Human Rights Watch, a friend of his was robbed and stabbed in front of him. The police came to the scene, retrieved the knife,
and left without investigating the incident or assisting the injured man in obtaining medical care. “The guy [the assailant] told the police that we were battymen. So the police just left. The police should have done something. [My friend] was cut and he was bleeding. . . . They looked at us and said, ‘you are all battymen.’ Then they took the knife [from the assailant] and told him to go.”

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, VOL. 16, NO. 6 (B) 74
Acknowledgments
This report was written by Rebecca Schleifer, based on research conducted by Rebecca
Schleifer of the HIV/AIDS and Human Rights Program and Scott Long of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch.

It was reviewed by Joanne Csete, director of the HIV/AIDS Program; Scott Long, director, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program; Marianne Møllmann,
Americas researcher for the Women’s Rights Division; Daniel Wilkinson, researcher with the Americas Division; Dinah PoKempner, general counsel; and Widney Brown,
deputy program director of Human Rights Watch. Production assistance was provided by Jennifer Nagle, Andrea Holley, Veronica Matushaj, and Fitzroy Hepkins.

A number of experts and nongovernmental organizations in Jamaica and elsewhere assisted with this research. Human Rights Watch gratefully acknowledges the Jamaica Forum of Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays and Jamaica AIDS Support for their invaluable assistance and courageous work.
We extend sincere thanks to everyone who shared their experiences with us and made this report possible, and regret that we cannot mention of all them by name.