The Guyana Together campaign ended its 2024 year of activities with an amplified call for decriminalisation of same-sex intimacy between consenting adult men in private. This call was made by Attorney-at-La and Partner at the law firm Cameron and Shepherd, Nikhil Ramkarran, on Wednesday as he addressed members of the Rotary Club of Georgetown at their Human Rights Initiative held at Palm Court on Main Street.
Addressing the need for law reform in the context of International Human Rights Day, Ramkarran pointed to the need for rights to be respected.
“One of these absolutely fundamental rights, regardless of whichever irrational prejudice of entitlement may inform your beliefs, is that each person is entitled to life free from prejudice,” Ramkarran declared. The lawyer called on those gathered to recognise that all persons are “created equal and each entitled to certain rights without debate or dissent,” as he pointed out that “this is unequivocal and cannot be debated by any rational person.”
Ramkarran also called for the end to prejudice that denies citizens the recognition of their rights and punishes them.
“It is prejudice to punish a person for a characteristic that they do not choose for themselves,” Ramkarran pointed out, “which does not cause harm to another.” Ramkarran described these prejudices as unacceptable. “We must recognise our susceptibility to prejudices and eliminate them individually and collectively,” he demanded.
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration sets out a broad range of fundamental rights and freedoms to which all are entitled, and it guarantees these freedoms without distinction based on who you are, where you live, what you do for work – and who you love. For this reason, Guyana Together remains committed to ensuring that our gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender friends and neighbours in Guyana are treated with the respect and dignity we all deserve.
Reflecting on the campaign’s year of achievements, Managing Director of SASOD Guyana, Joel Simpson, highlighted the campaign’s three video stories to date which have collectively garnered more than three million views and have been aired on local television newscasts and stations. These videos feature allies who are family and friends of a lesbian, gay man and a transgender man, who all have benefited from their love and support.
Simpson said too that the campaign has seen more than 100 endorsements from Guyanese businesses and local organisations and has seen scores of pledges from individuals, including members of the Rotary Club of Georgetown.
Launched in September 2023 by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Black Entrepreneurs Association, the Guyana Press Association and SASOD Guyana, the Guyana Together campaign is a grassroots, public education effort to increase respect and acceptance, and reduce stigma and prejudice against LGBTQ Guyanese.
