23rd Session, November 11, 2015
As delivered by Divya Khosla
The United States warmly welcomes the delegation of Saint Kitts and Nevis to the UPR Working Group.
We commend Saint Kitts and Nevis for its efforts in combatting HIV/AIDS, expanding health programming in this area, and the work done by the Department of Gender Affairs.
We encourage the government to ensure that women can safely and reasonably file complaints or pursue them in courts in accordance with the Domestic Violence Act.
We are also concerned about the continued criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct between consenting adults, which exacerbates societal discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex persons.
We remain concerned about poor prison conditions, lengthy detention times before trials, and the high homicide rate.
Bearing in mind these concerns, we recommend that Saint Kitts and Nevis:
- Strengthen efforts to raise awareness about violence against women and children.
- Decriminalize same-sex sexual conduct between consenting adults in the Offenses Against the Person Act and enact legislation to prevent discrimination against LGBTI persons.
- Increase resources to prisons to improve conditions, to the police to develop specialties in forensics and evidence collection, and the Department of Public Prosecutions to hasten the speed of trial procedures.