Homophobia Made AIDS a Caribbean Crisis

by Michael Jones · 2009-10-02 04:40:00 UTC
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HIV ribbon

Just how bad is the HIV/AIDS crisis in the Caribbean? If statistics tell the truth, then the answer is pretty damn bleak. AIDS is now the leading cause of death among adults in the Caribbean, and as a region the Caribbean has the second highest rate of new infections in the world, just behind Sub-Saharan Africa. And while people of all sexual orientations are affected, one thing clearly exacerbates the public health crisis of AIDS in the Caribbean: widespread homophobia.

The Atlantic takes a particularly close look at Jamaica this week, pointing out that homophobic policies -- Jamaica criminalizes homosexuality and has one of the most violent reputations when it comes to discriminating against LGBT people -- complicate efforts to educate around AIDS in the country. It's hard to talk to people about AIDS, especially gay men, when they're too damn afraid to come out for fear of being beaten or killed.

And it's hard to blame them. As one person told The Atlantic, he saw his boyfriend stabbed to death on the street, and also told the story of how another friend was locked inside a house and burned alive for being gay.

Homophobia has become so ramped up that people are starting to nix certain vocabulary words from their language for fear that the words sound too gay. As The Atlantic points out, many folks in Jamaica are refraining from saying the words "fish," "2," or "come back here," because the words are associated with being gay.

Earlier this year, when the United Nations debated a statement calling for the world decriminalization of homosexuality, one of the biggest reasons put forward for supporting the statement was that decriminalizing homosexuality allowed public health advocates to reach marginalized groups -- like LGBT people in many parts of the world -- with messages about how to prevent HIV/AIDS. That's not happening in Jamaica because of a fear of being sent to jail, a fear of being stabbed on the streets, or a fear of being wrapped up in rubber tires and set on fire. That's unacceptable, both from a public health standpoint and a human rights standpoint.

The Caribbean is failing on HIV/AIDS. Specifically, Jamaica is leading the way.

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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