UPR Sexual Rights Database

UN Compilation:
Para 8) Although the Government did not support universal periodic review recommendations associated with LGBTQI rights, Saint Kitts and Nevis has shown some openness to dialogue on the issue.

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 6) Human Rights Watch (HRW) informed that, since Saint Kitts and Nevis’ last UPR, it has conducted in-country research that evidenced the discrimination, violence, stigma, and prejudice that beset LGBT people’s enjoyment of basic rights.
Para 7) HRW stressed that Saint Kitts and Nevis did not have any comprehensive laws that prohibited discrimination on grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation, including in the employment, housing, access to education, and health care contexts. In this lacking legal context, discrimination against LGBT people seeped into everyday activities, whether it was availing of services such as health care, school, or riding a bus, or social activities such as going to the movies or shopping. Discrimination in the workplace can also occur. Notably, LGBT persons who faced discrimination in any sector lacked any legal avenue to seek redress for themselves or accountability for perpetrators.
Para 9) JAI reiterated that international human rights law customarily protected the right to privacy and the right to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful attacks on or interference with one’s private and family life. One’s reputation or dignity are also protected. International human rights law further establishes that matters of sexual orientation and gender identity are protected by the right to privacy and the right to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful interference with, or attacks on, one’s private and family life and one’s reputation or dignity. By criminalizing same-sex activity in the penal code, Saint Kitts and Nevis violates these international obligations. Saint Kitts and Nevis are also members states to the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which strives to increase human rights protections in the region.

National Report:
Para 75) The Government offers counselling to victims of abuse and trains police, nurses, guidance counsellors and other government employees on domestic and gender violence.

Para 76) The Department of Gender Affairs in collaboration with the Police he government carried out public campaigns against sexual violence, through churches and workplaces, on radio, and amongst civil society.

Para 92) The Domestic Violence Act 2014 enabled the Government through the Department of Gender Affairs to heighten awareness relating to teenage pregnancy, sexual education and violence against women and children.

Para 93) This legislation against child abuse, domestic violence classifies sexual violence, rape and incest as serious offences and establish appropriate penalties for the perpetrators, including relatives of the victim.

Para 101) Under the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Act, 2012, rape is recognized as a criminal act, liable to penalties under the law. The maximum penalty for rape is life imprisonment.

Para 102) Apart from the criminal law legislation addressing the issue of abuse against children (including abuse of a sexual nature) new Child Protection legislation was passed to provide an additional layer of protection that was not previously available to children who were being physically and sexually abused.

Para 103) This new Act, was patterned on the model legislation drafted under the OECS Family Law Reform Project. It establishes a comprehensive scheme for all the critical stages of a child protection case, including legal provisions to address reporting and investigation of cases; devising plans of care; seeking legal redress by way of a range of possible orders and providing a selection of helpful interventions. This new law is a civil remedy that focuses on the protection of child victims, as opposed to the criminal law which focuses on the perpetrator's unlawful conduct.

UN Compilation:
Para 15) The subregional team stated that societal negative attitudes towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community impeded the operation of organizations working for such individuals and their free association. It asserted that public discourse on the rights of such individuals indicated that there remained strong sentiment against homosexuality and gay marriage, and reported that the former Prime Minister had publicly advocated a review of the country's anti-sodomy laws and tolerance for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals

Stakeholder Summary
Para 10) JS2 reported that during the 2011 review, despite several recommendations made to decriminalize consensual same sex relations, Saint Kitts and Nevis stated that a popular "mandate" was necessary for state protection of the rights of sexual minorities, and that continued criminalization of consensual sex under sections 56 and 57 of the Offences against the Person Act was justified because of "strong opposition" by citizens to repeal these laws.