Gay people are not persecuted in Barbados says Attorney General
The Barbadian Attorney General has said that people who are gay do not face discrimination based on their sexual orientation.
Barbados law specifies that the punishment for male ‘buggery’ is life imprisonment, though the law is not regularly enforced.
The ban initially dates back to the British colonial era, though it was codified into the country’s 1992’s Sexual Offences Act.
Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite on Wednesday said that gay people are not persecuted in the country despite the law.
Speaking with the Canadian High Commissioner Marie Legault, Brathwaite, he said the ‘buggery’ law does not affect consenting same-sex couples.
He said that citizens were “tolerant” of same-sex relationships in the country, and made a point of saying that Barbados is one of the Caribbean islands where gays are not persecuted.
Going on, the Attorney General said he did not expect that there would be a “Caribbean consensus” on same-sex relationships.
Legault said that Canada “thrives on diversity”, urging Brathwaite towards helping make Barbados a place where it was “different from the rest of the Caribbean”.
The statement from Brathwaite slightly contrasts with one he made last year, when he said that gay people should be “left alone”.
