PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A high court on the eastern Caribbean island of Dominica has struck down colonial-era laws that criminalized gay sex.
It is the latest country to repeal such laws in the socially conservative region, joining Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda.
Monday’s ruling comes nearly five years after a man whose identity was withheld for his safety challenged Dominica’s laws in 2019, saying they violated his constitutional rights. While the laws emerged from the British colonial period, they were strengthened in 1998, with penalties of up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
The man said the laws caused him to “live in great condemnation and fear not only for himself but also for others who are part of the LGBT community in Dominica,” according to the Human Dignity Trust, a London-based nonprofit. .
“There are now only five countries in the Americas where laws that have been in place since colonial times and that criminalize LGBT people remain on the statute books,” said Téa Braun, executive director of the nonprofit organization.
Courts in Jamaica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have upheld such laws in recent years, and the rulings are being appealed.
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