Petition to the Honourable Members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Organization of

H.” FOR A DECISION RECOMMENDING REPEAL OF SECTIONS 9 AND 12 OF BARBADOS’ SEXUAL OFFENCES ACT SUBMITTED UNDER ARTICLE 44 OF THE AMERICAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND ARTICLE 23 OF THE COMMISSION’S RULES OF PROCEDURE June 6, 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXHIBIT LIST TABLE OF AUTHORITIES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... [...] 19, 2010) UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, Chile, CRC/C/CHL/CO/3 (Apr. [...] By criminalising a wide array of consensual sexual conduct between persons of the legal age of consent established elsewhere in the SOA, these provisions violate the fundamental rights of all sexually active (or potentially active) people in Barbados, such as the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression. [...] Barbados ratified the Convention in 1981 and has accepted the jurisdiction of both the Commission and the Court to consider the Petitioners’ claim that their rights under the Convention have been, and are being, breached by Barbadian law. [...] The Petitioners assert that sections 9 and 12 of the SOA both violate, and encourage violations of, the following rights of the Petitioners and of other LGBT people in Barbados, in breach of multiple provisions of the Convention: • the rights to non-discrimination in enjoyment of Convention rights (Article 1) and to equality before the law and equal protection of the law (Article 24); • the right.