[14] In February 2013, AIDS-Free World filed a legal complaint with the Jamaica Supreme Court on behalf of Javed Jaghai, who said his landlord kicked him out of his home because of his sexual orientation.

Gareth Henry sought asylum in Canada in 2008 after enduring repeated attacks by homophobic gangs and police brutality, and said he was forced to flee Jamaica in fear of his life.

The IACHR in its report setting out the decision, acknowledged the victims' concerns about "violence and discrimination against LGBT people and the impact of buggery laws,” and noted that, “if proved, the alleged facts relating to threats to life, personal integrity, interference with private and family life, obstacles to the right of residence and movement, unequal treatment, lack of access to justice and judicial protection, and interference in access to health care, could establish possible violations of (…) the American Convention [on Human Rights]”.

While it does guarantee all citizens numerous civil and political rights, it pointedly stipulates that the charter does not invalidate laws dealing with sexual offenses, pornography, or "the traditional definition of marriage".

[43] In 2011, the Parliament passed The Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms (Constitutional Amendment) Act, 2011 which explicitly banned same-sex marriage and any other kind of union to be recognized in Jamaica.

A letter dated July 18, 2019, has subsequently been sent to Ambassador Audrey Marks, permanent representative of Jamaica to the Organization of American States, requesting a government response to the petition in three months.

[7] It is the first LGBT human rights organization in Jamaican history, and its primary efforts include legal reform and advocacy, public education, crisis intervention, and support programs.

Quality of Citizenship Jamaica (QCJ), founded by Jalna Broderick and Angeline Jackson in 2013, was an organization that works toward creating safe spaces to empower the LGBT community.

[71] Nicolette Bryan is a lesbian Jamaican woman who is a co-founder of Women's Empowerment for Change (WE-Change) Archived 22 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine and has been serving as the executive director since November 2017, upon her return from the United Kingdom as a Chevening Scholar.

[74]: page: 6, ¶ 31–32 During the UPR working group meeting, Australia encouraged Jamaica to repeal its laws against same-sex activities and condemn homophobic statements made by public figures.

[78] In January 2018, Jamaica banned Steven Anderson, from the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, a Holocaust-denying anti-gay pastor, after an outcry from activists on the island.

[92][93] In June 2004, founding member and the public face of the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays (J-FLAG), and Jamaica's leading gay-rights activist, Brian Williamson, was stabbed to death in his home.

[94] Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher Rebecca Schleifer had a meeting with Williamson that day, and arrived at his home not long after his body had been discovered: She found a small crowd singing and dancing.

"[50]HRW also reported that police helped a suspect evade identification, and consistently refused to consider the possibility of a homophobic motive for the killing, with the senior officer responsible for the investigation claiming "most of the violence against homosexuals is internal.

[110] In August 2017, Dexter Pottinger, a Jamaican gay activist, fashion designer, and face of Jamaica Pride 2016 and 2017, was robbed and found murdered with 25 knife stab wounds at his home in St.

[111] In April 2019, in what has been described as a gay panic defense case, Romario Brown, who was initially charged with the murder of Pottinger, pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter after his caution statement revealed that his actions were caused by provocation by the deceased.

Scholar Wayne Marshall describes that, in Jamaica, acts of homosexuality are believed to be "decadent products of the West" and "are thus to be resisted alongside other forms of colonization, cultural or political."

This sentiment is easily demonstrated in the Jamaican dancehall hit "Dem Bow" by Shabba Ranks, in which homosexuality is violently condemned alongside a call for the "freedom for Black people.

"[129] In February 2006, a coalition of church leaders and members of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship declared their opposition to the privacy provisions of a proposed Charter of Rights that would form the basis of an amended Jamaican Constitution.

[130] Cecil Gutzmore at the University of the West Indies has written that religious fundamentalists believe that the Bible variously declares homosexuality to be an "abomination", a "vile affection", "unseemly", "not natural", or a "form of ungodliness".

Those who commit this great sin are thus unequivocally construed ... as legitimate subjects to be punished by terminal violence, a fate not only dealt out directly by God Himself but, presumably, also by those regarding themselves as His faithful servants and the possible agents of His will.

In Jamaica metaphorical stones enthusiastically and destructively cast take the form of homophobic song lyrics, passionate sermons, and parliamentary and party conference speeches that voice a refusal to liberalize anti-homosexuality laws.

[131]Local LGBT-rights group J-FLAG acknowledges that anti-LGBT sentiment is influenced by certain passages from the Bible, but counters that, the appropriation by legislatures of the Christian condemnation of homosexuals is a purely arbitrary process, guided largely by individual biases and collective prejudices.

It is simply that he cannot condone the abandonment of the clean "nip and tuck" of normal heterosexual relations for the unhygienic foray amid waste matter, unfriendly bacteria and toxic germs.

[154] In August 2013, Queen Ifrica made anti-gay comments at the Grand Gala independence celebrations in Kingston,[155] which were promptly criticised and labelled as inappropriate by the government's Ministry of Youth and Culture.

[157] A 2010 random survey of Jamaican adults showed that among those who most listened to reggae music, 65.0 percent expressed repulsion (the most negative emotion among the Riddle scale's eight possibilities) about persons in same-sex relationships.

[158] In an article for The Face, author Summer Eldemire describes how the video can be viewed as resistance to homophobia in dancehall music, especially given the backlash Shenseea has received for performing at Jamaican pride events and for sharing intimate photos of her and another woman on Instagram.

Risk factors of HIV that have already been classified as established determinants such as receptive anal intercourse and casual sex partners tended to be more common among those MSM who had dealt with the issues formerly stated.

[179] The HIV epidemic has been closely tied to poverty and developmental and socio-cultural issues, including slow economic growth, high levels of unemployment, early sexual debut, the culture of multiple partnerships, and the informal drug and commercial sex sectors.

Dr. Robert Carr, widely recognized as one of the world's leading researchers on cultural forces and the unfolding of the HIV pandemic, said: AIDS was seen as a disease of gay, White, North American men.