Police in the southeastern Caribbean island country of Grenada, have arrested a 41 year-old man for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old, the Associated Press reported.
The age of sexual consent in Grenada is 16 but while the sex in question was consensual, local law prohibits sodomy under the charge of “unnatural connection.”
Grenada is one of several Caribbean nations that has laws banning sex between men. The penalty in most islands, including Grenada, is up to 10 years in prison, although Barbados and Guyana have life imprisonment, according to a 2010 United Nations report.
Sodomy laws which prohibit homosexual acts are still on the books in the conservative, and mostly Catholic country, but are rarely enforced.
In Grenada, gays are often discriminated against and find it hard to find employment and housing, according to Nigel Mathlin, president of GrenCHAP, a local nonprofit organization that represents marginalized groups.
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