Saint Lucias law banning homosexuality has been declared unconstitutional in a historic ruling by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.This decision is deeply personal. For many years, weve worked to see the rights, lives, and dignity of LGBTQ+ persons in Saint Lucia and the OECS protected, said Kenita Placide, executive director of Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality (ECADE), an LGBTQ+ organization in the Caribbean. Related Angola becomes the first country to legalize homosexuality in 2019 The country also banned sexual orientation-based discrimination in the move. Todays ruling is not just a win in the courts, it also represents a step towards justice for the many lives lost to violence simply for being themselves. It signals that our Caribbean can and must be a place where all people are free and equal under the law.At issue were the Caribbean island nations gross indecency and buggery laws, sections 132 and 133 of the Criminal Code of Saint Lucia, which criminalize same-sex relations even in private. Under each of those laws, consensual male homosexuality could be punished with up to ten years imprisonment. Even attempting to commit buggery could be met with a sentence of five years. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today According to ECADE, the court ruled that the sections violated the rights to privacy, life, liberty, security of the person, freedom of expression, protection from discrimination on the basis of sex, and protection of the law. While the law wasnt frequently enforced, the Human Dignity Trust said that the mere existence of this provision is itself a violation of human rights and underpins further acts of discrimination. Often, laws criminalizing homosexuality are used to justify discrimination in other areas, since anti-LGBTQ+ advocates can point to the illegality of homosexuality to justify discrimination instead of just their personal animus. Saint Lucia has a population of just under 200,000 people, most of whom are Christian. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court has jurisdiction over Saint Lucia and five other member states: Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda. In 2019, ECADE helped launch multiple legal challenges against homosexuality bans in several Caribbean nations, and in 2022, courts ruled against those laws in Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. In 2024, a court ruled against Dominicas homosexuality ban. Human rights in the Eastern Caribbean continue to advance as the colonial legacies of these unconstitutional provisions continue to fall, wrote Antigua and Barbuda Foreign Affairs Minister JMoul Francis on social media. However, more still needs to be done across the region to ensure that progress is real, practical, and effective for LGBTQ+ individuals.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.