Over spring break, IHRC students Cristina Figueroa-Cortes, Gloria Lee, Elizabeth Maushart, April Peth, and Jayna Sutherland traveled to Kingston, Jamaica with clinic director, Francisco J. Rivera Juaristi. The students interviewed members of the religious community, government officials, academics, and non-governmental organizations on issues regarding the treatment of members of the LGBTI community in Jamaica.
The students will use the information obtained from these interviews to write an amicus curiae brief. The brief will lend support to a petition filed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that seeks to establish the international responsibility of Jamaica for both conduct and laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Among other problems, Jamaican homosexual men are often brutally beaten simply because of their sexual orientation, and the state authorities are either complicit in these abuses or turn a blind eye to them.
Elizabeth Maushart stated that the interview experience in Jamaica was a rich and worthwhile opportunity. It illuminated the reality of Jamaican society and its general treatment of homosexuality. April Peth reported that the trip allowed for the students to get an accurate idea of the type and degree of discrimination members of the LGBTI community face in Jamaica, as well as the legal, institutional, and societal changes that are needed to put an end to such discrimination.
From left to right: Jayna Sutherland, April Peth, Elizabeth Maushart,and Gloria Lee
