Overview

• The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court ruled on July 29 that sections banning “buggery” and “gross indecency” breach Saint Lucia’s constitutional rights to privacy and equality.
• The court struck down penal code provisions retained in a 2004 update that prescribed up to ten years’ imprisonment for same-sex intimacy.
• Activists warn that even rarely enforced colonial-era statutes have fueled stigma, harassment and violence against LGBTQ+ people on the island.
• The Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality and the Human Dignity Trust hailed the decision as an affirmation of dignity and a precedent for other member states.
• Saint Lucia becomes the fifth Organization of Eastern Caribbean States jurisdiction to decriminalize consensual same-sex activity via high-court rulings, while five others still enforce similar bans.