Oceania

Cook Islands decriminalizes homosexuality

MPs voted to repeal provision of 1969 law

Published

2 years ago

April 17, 2023

Cook Islands Parliament (Screen capture via Cook Islands Parliament YouTube)

Lawmakers in the Cook Islands on Friday approved a bill that decriminalizes consensual same-sex sexual relations in the South Pacific country.

The Cook Islands News reported the Crimes (Sexual Offenses) Amendment Bill 2023 removes a provision of the Crimes Act 1969 that had punished homosexuality with up to five years in prison.

“On behalf of Pride Cook Islands, we congratulate our prime minister and his government for doing the right thing — Love is Love,” Pride Cook Islands President Karla Eggelton told the Cook Islands News after the vote. “Te Iti Tangata, hug the ones you love and now you can tell them they belong. We are one.”

Prime Minister Mark Brown said “it is not the job of government to tell people what their seuality is.”

“We are a people of love and respect,” he said. “Today we have done our job as lawmakers. We have removed a discriminatory and unjust law that goes against our constitution and our values as a nation. We have done what is right and what is just. We are protecting our people.”

UNAIDS Asia Pacific Regional Director Eamonn Murphy also praised the vote.

“Cook Islands’ latest move is part of a wave of global progress around removing laws that harm,” said Murphy in a press release. “It will inspire countries across the Pacific, Asia and the world to follow suit. Decriminalize, save lives.”

FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Vanuatu

Vanuatu lawmakers consider constitutional amendment to recognize two genders

Country decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in 2007

Published

3 days ago

May 8, 2025

Michael K. Lavers

(Photo by butenkow/Bigstock)

Lawmakers in Vanuatu are considering an amendment to the country’s constitution that would recognize only two sexes: Male and female.

The Vanuatu Daily Post in an April 23 article quoted Vanuatu Christian Council Chair Collin Keleb, a pastor with the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu, said the country “cannot allow someone from outside to influence or empower them (the LGBTQ community), which will cause them to go astray instead of maintaining and uniting ourselves as children of God.”

The country’s Council of Ministers has approved the proposed amendment. The Vanuatu Daily Post notes the government has said the measure would “align the country’s laws with the preambles of ‘Melanesian values and Christian principles’ upon which Vanuatu was founded.”

Vanuatu is an island country in the South Pacific that is located roughly 1,100 miles northeast of Australia’s Queensland state.

Consensual same-sex sexual relations have been decriminalized in Vanuatu since 2007.

It remains unclear when the proposed amendment will receive final approval.