Belize gay rights
Belize’s Supreme Court Decriminalizes Same-Sex Activity
“This is a momentous victory for Belize, and I congratulate the LGBTQ advocates of Belize, as well as the countless legal experts and supporters who fought for this win,” said Ty Cobb, Director of HRC Global. “While Belize is the third country to decriminalize same-sex intimate relationships this year, advocates and attorneys from India to Kenya are diligently productive on decriminalization efforts in the 72 countries where such laws remain."
The decision, remarkable down Section 53 of the Belize criminal code, came as a product of the case Caleb Orozco v. The Attorney General of Belize.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Embassy in Belmopan raised a rainbow flag to commemorate LGBTQ Pride Month. 7 News Belize reported that it was the first time the symbol of LGBTQ equality was flown in the country. U.S. Ambassador to Belize Carlos Moreno said of the event, “LGBT rights are human rights, human rights are LGBT rights, there is no distinction, and there is no difference.”
With this verdict, the number of countries that criminalize LGBTQ people drops to 72.
Bel
Inside Caleb Orozco’s Fight to Overturn Belize’s Anti-Gay Laws
This post originally appeared in The Daily Beast
Once, at a speaking engagement, I said to the audience, “I am Caleb Orozco and I love to fight!”
Fighting is what I do: for an education, for my health, for my spirit, and to find solutions to my fears.
I am also aware of the importance of inspiring others, and my desire to see better for all people who live in Belize. I have come to learn that death threats, physical assault, and humiliation will make a victim out of anyone, but it is principle that will allow you to stand your ground.
Belize is a former British colony of around 370,000 people located in Central America that got its independence in 1981. Its history and development from settlement to nation is filled with threats, disruption, and political struggles that had begun in the 1700s.
I sense that history in my DNA, fueled with a wish to fight for transformation that is strengthen with purpose. My fight to overturn the sodomy laws in Belize began in 2007 when I first met professor Tracy Robinson from the Faculty of Law at the Un
Belize
In 2016, Belize’s Supreme Court overturned the country’s colonial-era “buggery” law, Section 53 of the Belize Penal Code. Moreover, the court ruled that the Constitution protects people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, based on an expansive interpretation of the constitutional grounds of “sex.” The Appeals Court upheld both rulings in 2019.
Belize’s Immigration Act classifies “any prostitute or homosexual” as “prohibited immigrants.” There are no procedures for legal gender recognition in Belize, making transgender people particularly vulnerable.
LGBTIQ organizations have reported that police, landlords, teachers, and other members of the public discriminate against Belizeans based on their perceived sexual orientation and gender self. Evangelical churches have opposed actions to advance the human rights of LGBTIQ people.
Despite these challenges, LGBTIQ activists have been celebrating Pride publicly every year since August 2017, a year after same-sex intimacy was decriminalized.
* Outright research indicates that the bodily autonomy of intersex people is not respected and protected in this country.
The Court of Appeal has today delivered a judgment denying the Belize Government’s appeal of a 2016 ruling decriminalising adult consensual gay relations.
The three-judge bench reaffirmed the judgment of the Leader Justice in 2016 that Section 53 of the Belize Criminal Code – which criminalised ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ and disproportionately discriminated against the dyke, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) collective in Belize – contravened the constitutional rights to dignity, equality before the law, privacy, liberty of expression and non-discrimination on the grounds of sex, and was therefore void.
Importantly, Justice Samuel Lungole-Awich stated unequivocally in today’s decision that the Constitutional prohibition on sex discrimination includes sexual orientation discrimination, and that this “gives the word sex in ss. 3 and 16 of the Constitution a purposive and generous meaning for protecting human rights. Accordingly, we hold that s. 53 of the Criminal Code is a rule which discriminates on the basis of sex…and is void to that extent.” The court further found that sexual expression is part of the Constitutional right to f