Unreported World: Jamaica's Underground Gays

22 May 2014

Krissy is openly gay in a society where 85% of the population think homosexuality is immoral.
Ostracised by her community, her home is a storm drain; her water supply, a broken water pipe; and her evenings are regularly spent dodging hurled stones and broken bottles.

Watch the shocking Unreported World Shorts video about Krissy’s life at:  http://ow.ly/x3r3f

In an eye-opening edition of Unreported World , reporter Ade Adepitan and director Andrew Carter travel to Kingston Jamaica to investigate the growth of homophobic attacks and meet the gay and transgender group who’ve ended up living in a storm drain where they suffer shocking violence, attacks and insults, because of their sexuality.

Jamaica has a reputation for intolerance of homosexuality. Male gay sex is punishable by 10 years’ hard labour and violent hostility is entrenched in the island’s culture. Unreported World meets one group of gay and transgender people who are now living in a gully, which is usually designed to carry floodwater and rubbish from the city.

It’s hot, crowded, infested and filthy. But it’s the only place these twenty-five people are able to call home. There are no facilities: cooking and washing-up are done in the gutter. Water comes from a broken pipe under a road bridge. And it’s not in a poor part of town, but in the middle of New Kingston, the capital’s business district.

Most homosexuals in Jamaica work hard to hide their sexuality. Those who are openly ‘out’ are in the firing line.

Ade meets 21-year-old Krissy who was born male but believes her true gender is female.  She says she didn’t feel safe expressing this at home - and so she’s lived on the streets on and off since she was 12. Apart from her sister, she hasn’t seen most of her family for years.

Unreported World Shorts offer bite sized views of the lives of people in some of the fastest-changing areas of the world. Hard hitting stats and infographics allow viewers to get to the heart of the issues.

Unreported World:  Jamaica’s Underground Gays - Channel 4, 7.30pm, Friday 23 May.