Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity & Equality (ECADE) launched in response to discrimination

​Several organizations across the eastern Caribbean have come together to launch the Eastern Caribbean Alliance for Diversity and Equality or ECADE, in response to continuing discrimination faced by some persons in society because of perceptions of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and their intersex status.
 
According to a release, ECADE was ratified in November 2016 during a two-day meeting in Saint Lucia, which followed an initial meeting held in Grenada in February, 2015. At the Saint Lucia meeting, members of LGBTIQ and human rights organizations from the eastern Caribbean, including Dominica, Barbados and Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, met to discuss and endorse policy and governance issues and next steps to guide this new network over the coming years.
 
Interim-Chair, CHAP-Dominica, Arlene Gregoire, says this organization will act as an umbrella body for human rights groups within the small countries of the eastern Caribbean, in particular those that seek to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex people.