Human Rights, Sexual Equality and Youth (HRSEY)

In July 2014, IGDS: NBU commenced the implementation of the Human Rights, Sexual Equality and Youth (HRSEY) participatory action project.
This three-pronged initiative will: (a) assess the vulnerabilities of LGBTQ youth to violence, discrimination, and victimization, (b) seek to remove barriers to LGBTQ youth’s access to necessary services by engaging in advocacy among social care providers and other key resource persons and (c) conduct a thorough review of Barbados’ laws and legal agreements that clarifies the nation’s human rights obligations and promotion of sexual equality. This project builds on the recently completed pilot study titled: "Education and Teen Sexuality in Barbados: A Gender Perspective" completed in 2012.
A significant portion of the project's data was collected at the Caribbean Women and Sexual Diversity Conference in 2014. Investigators from the IGDS: NBU used the lived experiences interviewing tool to gather data from 28 women representing 11 countries across the region: Trinidad, Dominica, Suriname, St Lucia, Jamaica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Croix, Guyana, St Martin and Barbados. Using a mixed methods methodology, qualitative data was collected through three focus groups and individual guided narratives, as well as a written survey instrument. The data collected focussed on safe spaces, support systems, multiple forms of violence that LBT women experience.
HRSEY has also established partnerships with key actors who provide input and feedback at all major stages of the project.
Under this project, the “Capturing the Experiences and Knowledge of Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (LBT) Women Across the Caribbean” report was also completed as a major output of the project. The report includes rich narratives from LBT women as they negotiate relationships and deal with prejudice, discrimination and/or violence in the community, family, church, law, healthcare and employment. Read the report here.

Quotes

" We need to broaden our horizons and begin to ask those awkward questions about what sexuality looks like for the majority of women especially under contemporary global economic conditions, how heternormativity has developed and today is lived on a day-to-day basis, what makes sexuality pleasurable, what makes it oppressive and exploitative, and how it is linked to gender and other axes of power. "
Power, Labour, Pleasure: Sexuality in Everyday Life, Kamala Kempadoo

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