UPR Sexual Rights Database

National Report:
Para 33. The Department of Gender Affairs has a significant responsibility in raising awareness; monitoring and improving the status of women and girls in the country through the implementation of a number of International Conventions and declarations.
Para 34) The Department’s priority areas include the formation of a National Gender Policy, the empowerment of women and girls, the reduction of all forms of gender-based violence, poverty elimination, governance and democracy, and programmes for men and boys.
Para 35) The Department of Gender Affairs functions under a policy framework, which is guided by international and regional commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals, Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Gender Equality Observatory, (CSW) Commission on the Status of Women in Saint Kitts & Nevis and the Belém do Pará Convention. It has responsibility to fulfil periodic international, regional and national reporting obligations.
Para 39) In 2016-2017 the Department of Gender Affairs led a Gender Sensitization Project designed to provide the wider society with a more sophisticated understanding of gender; to improve gender mainstreaming in the public sector, and to enable the private sector to address and provide more substantial reporting about gender-related issues. Deliverables from this project included the creation of three sector specific training guides and a manual for use with adolescents, the private sector and focal point units within the public sector. Subsequently, 116 focal points across Saint Kitts and Nevis in the private and public sectors, and civil society were trained. Further gender sensitization training sessions were carried out in July and August 2018 respectively. Gender sensitization training continues to be delivered through the Department of Gender Affairs.
Para 40) After a Gender Equality Study was conducted in 2014, the results renewed the Government’s desire to complete a Gender Policy, and in 2018, the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis restarted the consultative process towards its National Gender Policy. The general objective of the gender policy is to advocate for non- discrimination on the grounds of sex and to provide a framework that will assist the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis in facilitating gender equality and empowerment. The policy will be structured in two parts: gender mainstreaming and gender setting.
Para 41) ‘Gender mainstreaming’ is a strategy embraced by the Government, and is an important initiative that promotes gender equality in institutions policies and programmes. The implications and interests of men and women are considered in order to address unequal social structures. Gender mainstreaming seeks to ensure that gender issues are addressed within the existing development strategies and programmes. Gender setting will seek to transform the existing agenda through the systematic application of a gender perspective. Other strategies will include gender sensitization, training, promotion, ensuring public ownership of the policy, ensuring data disaggregation, promoting women’s empowerment and gender equality, and establishing a gender responsive, monitoring and evaluating mechanism within government and other agencies.
Para 42) The Government recently received approval for additional funding, from UNESCO, to complete the drafting of said policy. The document is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2021 and will be presented to Cabinet for approval thereafter.

UN Compilation:
Para 35) The subregional team asserted that Saint Kitts and Nevis had adopted the Social Protection Strategy for 2013-2017, which prioritized a number of vulnerable groups for social protection interventions, including teenage mothers ...

National Report:
Para 57) Since its first UPR review, the Government of St Kitts and Nevis has held consultations with a large cross section of the society including persons with disabilities to assess the needs of this group of individuals, usually considered as a marginalized group.

Para 58) The aim was to more fully engage persons with disabilities and their representatives to discuss the international CRPD.

UN Compilation:
Para 1) The United Nations subregional team for Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) noted that, during the 2011 universal periodic review of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the country received numerous recommendations to ratify or accede to various international human rights treaties and that, although Saint Kitts and Nevis accepted some of those recommendations, it had not ratified any additional core United Nations international human rights treaties.

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 3) JS2 reported that subsequent to UPR 2011 the Government of Saint Kitts and Nevis had promised to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and that this was still pending. It considered that in so doing the Government had largely failed to adequately promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities as per recommendation 76.30 delivered in its UPR 2011

National Report:
Para 45) Saint Kitts and Nevis is also an avid participant of the annual 16-day campaign on Violence against Women and Girls. The 16-Day Campaign which was observed in the Federation from November 25 to December 10, 2019 was designed to demonstrate solidarity with survivors of domestic and gender-based violence, raise awareness, prevent the occurrence wherever possible, and advocate for relief and justice for the victims.
Para 47) Different public campaigns were also lead by the Ministry of Gender Affairs which featured primarily on popular call-in radio programmes. Guest panelists included staff from the Special Victims Unit of the Royal Saint Christopher and Nevis Police Force, and the National Men’s Council.
Para 48) Collaboration with the Ministry of Education resulted in the involvement of primary school children in public service announcements to condemn domestic violence and promote a kinder, gentler society; and secondary school children in public awareness raising activities, such as marches and street theatre.

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 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.