"Sexual Orientation as a fundamental Right"

Welcome Friends, goodafternoon. Welcome to this discussion on Sexual Orientation as a fundamental right in Guyana. Thanks very much for braving the rain and coming out to discuss and to hear.

The purpose of this discussion is to raise awareness of the issues around fundamental human rights, especially fundamental human rights for gay, lesbian and all-sexual Guyanese and to have these enshrined in our constitution. The history of this discussion goes back to 2001 when as part of the constitutional reform commission; there was act which was proposed to amend article 149 of our constitution, the following aspects:

That paragraph 12. Was going to be replaced by a paragraph which included sexual orientation as one of the issues against which people should not be discriminated. Since January 2001, and subsequently letters appeared mostly in the Stabroek News discussing this issue. And the letters included a whole range of things, ranging from issues around democracy, issues around Hinduism, Christianity, Islam. And it is at this juncture we thought we also widen the debate by having this public forum because we realize that many people don ’t necessarily read and participate in that letter column, in the letter debates.

This debate comes at the end of a week which the 59th Session of the UN Commission for Human Rights debated a resolution which was proposed by Brazil on recognizing that Human Rights and sexual orientation are intrinsically linked. It comes at a time just after South Africa, Ecuador, Mexico have all outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Friends this afternoon we were going to have a discussion as I said it is to raise awareness and I would now like to introduce to Rev. Mike James, Deacon of the Roman Catholic Church and ask him to lead us through the first presentations.

Opening remarks by Moderator: Many thanks Vidya and welcome all for taking your Sunday afternoon off. I see lots of familiar faces here as well. So welcome to you all. As Vidya as mentioned the issue about the rights of homosexuals within the rights situation in a democracy has become quite topical not only in Guyana but elsewhere. We have a number of speakers here who are gonna fill us out. What we ’re really hoping for, of course, is a good dialogue and I see we ’re obviously going to have one because we have people that I know clearly, who have very different views on the issue. And we would like to stimulate and advocate that kind of dialogue towards a greater understanding of this issue of rights. So without further delay. I ’d like to invite our first speaker up and that ’s going to be Mr. Ravi Dev, MP in the current parliament. I think he hardly needs any introduction because he ’s so well known. A television personality in his own right. And Ravi is going to speak about minority rights in a secular democracy. So I ’d like to invite Mr. Ravi Dev to address."

Click here to view a summary of the Forum in Adobe PDF

Click on the links below to view transcripts of the presentations made at this forum.

Hon Ravi Dev, MP - "Minority Rights in a Secular Democracy"
Dr Julie Hando - "Homosexuality, a mental illness?"
Sanjay Kabir Bavikatte - "Oppression of sexual minorities"

Many thanks to the person who wishes to remain anonymous for taking time to transcribe the tapes of this forum.