A colonial relic disappears
In 2023, the Cook Islands removed a colonial ban from their criminal law. A long road came to an end.
On 14 April 2023, members of the Cook Islands' queer community gathered outside parliament in Avarua. They waved rainbow flags; their hope was cautious. Too often it had been disappointed. But on that Friday, members of parliament deleted the provisions of the criminal law that prohibited consensual sex between men.
The sections were in the Crimes Act of 1969, but their roots went back further. Britain had once transferred its criminal law to the South Pacific island group via New Zealand. Women were never affected. The ban had no longer been enforced recently, but on paper it carried several years in prison.
The road to reform was long. A first draft was presented in 2017. Two years later, a parliamentary committee removed decriminalisation again after a public consultation, which caused outrage in the community. Only after the 2022 election, before which all the major parties had come out in favour of the change, did the breakthrough come.
Prime Minister Mark Brown told parliament that it was not the state's job to interfere in people's private lives as long as everything was consensual and harmed no one. He openly acknowledged that the older generation thought more conservatively than the younger. Resistance came from two members. One warned that the country might soon follow New Zealand's example and introduce marriage equality.
Karla Eggelton, president of Pride Cook Islands, said the law had finally caught up with society. The reform came into force on 1 June 2023. Marriage, however, remained closed to same-sex couples, and in six other Pacific states homosexuality was still a crime.