The Cook Islands will stage its first Pride Day this month, as the country's LGBT community fights to have homosexuality removed from the Crimes Act.
An image from Auckland's Rainbow Pride march in February. Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
It comes after a select committee last year reinstated homosexuality as a crime into a bill to replace the act, after it was initially removed.
This year, parliamentarians will vote on the act's final form and whether homosexuality will be decriminalised.
The Pride Day event will be held at the national auditorium on Rarotonga on 27 March.
An event spokesperson, Karla Eggelton, said she hoped it would stir community support.
"Right now with this law hanging over our head we feel like second class citizens and we don't want to be treated or seen like that," she said.
"So we want to put a positive face on all of us, and let people know that we are your family members, we are your workmates, we are your neighbours."
