Homosexuality Laws Around the World The countries of the world have a wide variety of laws relating to sexual relations between people of the same sex – everything from full legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty as punishment for homosexual conduct.
In addition to laws against same-sex relationships, many countries have laws geared towards a homosexual orientation, everything from passing anti-discrimination laws to barring those with a homosexual orientation from adoption.
1 Defeat for Discrimination, Victory for Inclusion 7/08
2 South African named as new UN human rights chief 7/08
3 Book review: How solutions lie in The Wisdom of Whores 7/08
4 AIDS Prevention Focus Returns to Gay Men at Mexico Conference 8/08
5 UN chief: End bias against gay men 8/08
6 Olympics Still Rough Terrain for Openly Gay Athletes 8/08
7 11 out gay/bi athletes to watch at the Olympic Game 8/08
9 Nations pledge to support gay rights at UN meeting 9/08
10 United Nations calls on UK to stop discrimination against LGBT teens 10/08
12 Global AIDS crisis overblown? Some dare to say so 11/08
13 UN: General Assembly to Address Sexual Orientation 12/08
14 UN: General Assembly to Address Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity 12/08
15 ‘Sodomy’ Laws Show Survival of Colonial Injustice 12/08
16 66 countries back UN statement on rights of sexual minorities 12/08
1
United Nations: Defeat for Discrimination, Victory for Inclusion: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Groups Gain Consultative Status
(New York) – The decision by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) granting consultative status to two groups that work on sexual orientation and gender identity is a victory in the ongoing struggle for inclusion at the UN, a coalition of six human rights organizations said today. The two groups approved on July 21 and 22, 2008 are COC Netherlands and the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transexuals and Bisexuals of Spain (FELGTB), national organizations representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Netherlands and Spain.
"COC Netherlands is delighted about obtaining consultative status with the UN," said Björn van Roozendaal, COC international advocacy officer. "It means we can join the efforts at the UN to address human rights violations against people with an alternative sexual orientation or gender identity."
"Spanish-speaking LGBT voices will be heard in UN meetings where human rights questions are debated," said David Montero, FELGTB Spain’s officer for international issues and human rights. "We thank all who have contributed to this exciting outcome, and especially Spain’s UN mission for their support."
Consultative status is a key means for civil society to access the UN system. It allows non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to deliver oral and written reports at UN meetings, and to organize events on UN premises. With it, these groups can share their information and analysis of the abuses and discrimination LGBT people confront around the world.
ECOSOC, consisting of 54 member states of the UN, grants consultative status to NGOs after reviewing recommendations made by its subsidiary body – the NGO Committee – which screens the applications. COC Netherlands and FELGTB Spain join approximately 3,000 other NGOs with consultative status at the UN. However, only a handful of LGBT groups have received the status. In recent years, some states have treated LGBT groups’ applications with intense hostility, and ECOSOC has only granted such groups consultative status after first overturning negative recommendations from its NGO Committee.
ECOSOC approved the Danish National Association for Gay and Lesbians, the European Region of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA-Europe), and the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany in December 2006. The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Québec and the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights gained consultative status in July 2007.
The US-based International Wages Due Lesbians and Australian-based Coalition of Activist Lesbians have had consultative status at the UN for more than a decade. At its January session, the committee tied 7-7 on consultative status for FELGTB Spain, meaning the motion to recommend it failed, but at the following session in June it voted 7-6 to grant the status for COC Netherlands. At the July session in New York, ECOSOC adopted by consensus the recommendation on COC Netherlands and voted to overturn the recommendation not to grant status to FELGTB Spain.
"ECOSOC has recognized the place of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the work of the United Nations," said John Fisher from ARC International, which supported the groups’ advocacy efforts. "In this 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is particularly important to affirm the core principle that all human beings are entitled to the full enjoyment of all human rights, without discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Yesterday’s vote sends a clear message that discrimination has no place in the UN system, and that sexual orientation and gender identity issues can, and must, be addressed."
"Many states that harass or persecute LGBT people at home also try to shut down scrutiny of their records internationally," said Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Program at Human Rights Watch. "This vote ensures that two more voices will be raised to defend basic human rights at the UN."
"States from all five regions voted to overturn the negative recommendation from the NGO Committee in regards to FELGTB Spain," said Philipp Braun, co-secretary general of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA). "We would like the committee to acknowledge the repeated message sent by ECOSOC that it should recommend LGBT groups. We also congratulate our members COC and FELGTB on their victory."
"Many states claim that ECOSOC’s votes need to follow the recommendations of its NGO Committee; the view of those who voted in favor of the LGBT groups, however, is that this cannot be done at the price of discriminating against anyone, including LGBT voices," noted Adrian Coman from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), who participated in monitoring the ECOSOC and NGO Committee meetings.
The NGO Committee is due to review a number of additional applications from LGBT groups at its next two sessions in January and May 2009. A full list of states’ voting patterns during the current ECOSOC session can be found here.
For more information, please contact:
In Amsterdam, Björn van Roozendaal, (COC Netherlands): +31 622 55 83 00 or bvanroozendaal@coc.nl
In Madrid, David Montero (FELGTB Spain): +34 667 452 541 or areainternacional@felgt.org
In Geneva, John Fisher (ARC International): +41-79-508-3968 or john@arc-international.net
In New York, Hossein Alizadeh (IGLHRC): +1 (212) 430-6016 or halizadeh@iglhrc.org
In Brussels, Stephen Barris (ILGA): +32-2-502-2471 or stephenbarris@ilga.org
In New York, Boris Dittrich (Human Rights Watch): +1 (212) 216-1280 or boris.dittrich@hrw.org
pinknews.co.uk
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-8504.html
July 28, 2008
2
South African named as new UN human rights chief
by Staff Writer, PinkNews.co.uk
The new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will be South African judge Navanethem Pillay. She has been nominated despite initial American resistance over her support for abortion rights. The UN General Assembly is to meet today to confirm Ms Pillay’s appointment to the high profile role. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced her nomination on Thursday. In an interview with Reuters, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, congratulated Ms Pillay on her new job. "We need a strong voice, we need a credible voice to speak on the issue of human rights issues, one of the key missions of the United Nations and we look forward to working with her," he said.
He denied the US had formally opposed her nomination. In 1967 Ms Pillay became the first woman to start a law practice in Natal Province, South Africa, and the first black woman to serve in the country’s High Court. As a lawyer she defended many opponents of apartheid. She was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to be a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served for eight years, including four years as president. She has written on and practised in international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law, and more particularly on crimes of sexual violence in conflicts.
In a valedictory speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour challenged the continued oppression of women and sexual minorities. "A failure to understand or accommodate diversity has inevitably led to an erosion of the rights of minorities and vulnerable people within a country, and those of individuals who move across borders, including refugees or migrants," she told the 47-member council. "Fears and mutual suspicions, engendered by the security environment that has prevailed in the past few years, have exposed minorities to additional risks and abuse. "The perpetuation of prejudices continue to deny equal rights and dignity to millions worldwide on the basis of nothing more innocuous than their sexual identity or orientation, or their ancestry, in the case of caste discrimination."
During her time as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights many Muslim and African countries expressed their displeasure at Mrs Arbour’s insistence that gay and lesbian people and women have human rights equal to those of men. She highlighted the treatment of sexual minorities through her work. Mrs Arbour said the new state reporting system, known as the Universal Periodic Review, could provide a vehicle for scrutiny of the implementation of rights and norms beyond anything ever attempted by the Commission on Human Rights, the ineffective body that was replaced by the Human Rights Council in June 2006.
The UPR, which began functioning in April, has examined the human rights record of 32 states so far, and will take four years to complete its first round of all the UN’s 192 member states. It illustrates deep divisions on the issue of gay rights. As part of the second stage of the UPR Tonga was advised to decriminalise sexual activity between consenting adults, recommended by the Netherlands, Canada and the Czech Republic. However Bangladesh, a Muslim country, told Tonga it should retain a ban on gay sex.
Pakistan has expressed the view that sexual orientation falls outside "universally recognised human rights." Last year Mrs Arbour declared her support for the Yogyakarta Principles.
Named after the Indonesian city where they were adopted, the principles were introduced by 29 international human rights experts at a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva in March 2007. They refer to the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity and address issues such as rape and gender-based violence, extra-judicial executions, torture and medical abuses, repressions of free speech and discrimination in the public services.
From: Xtra.ca
http://www.xtra. ca/public/ viewstory. aspx?AFF_ TYPE=1&STORY_ ID=5190&PUB_ TEMPLATE_ ID=3
July 31, 2008
3
Book review: How solutions lie in The Wisdom of Whores
‘The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels, and the Business of AIDS.’
by Elizabeth Pisani. Viking Canada. $23.
by Greg Beneteau
Elizabeth Pisani is taking the AIDS industry to task in print. After nearly a decade of tracking HIV-infection patterns among high-risk groups in Asia, Elizabeth Pisani has concluded that there’s a worldwide shortage of frank discussion about HIV risk factors. People, she says, don’t talk openly about "sex and drugs and all the other daft things you do when you’re thinking with your dick, or female equivalent."
The Wisdom of Whores describes in almost comic detail how the US government doles out billions of dollars to fund abstinence before marriage programs that don’t work and to "eradicate prostitution" in countries where there are few alternatives. This approach is tainted by religious ideology — the kind of bible-thumping that paints AIDS as an angry and vengeful God’s punishment of gays. According to Pisani political correctness, human rights and money — especially money — also conspire to distract attention from the realities of the world AIDS crisis.
"It’s recognized that there’s an institutional investment in making HIV absolutely everybody’s problem, in making it a development issue and a gender inequality issue and in mounting an expansive multisectoral response and all of that bollocks," Pisani explains. "But while we’re doing that we’re refocusing prevention away from what works." A former Asian correspondent for Reuters, Pisani stumbled into the world of epidemiology after returning to school in the UK in the mid 1990s. With a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology she joined the newly formed United Nations umbrella group UNAIDS in 1996 and helped to sound the alarm about the rapidly growing numbers of HIV cases.
She relates with frustration how world leaders are afraid to confront evidence that intergenerational and extramarital sex — sex that lies outside the bounds of polite conversation — fuel HIV transmission in parts of Africa. They prefer, she says, to portray AIDS as an issue of poverty and under-development.
But Uganda and Senegal, despite their socioeconomic challenges, were able to stave off the worst of the HIV epidemic by focusing prevention efforts on sex workers and people having "sex in nets," or with multiple partners. Elsewhere the timidity had disastrous consequences: By the time Pisani penned the first biennial report on AIDS in 1998 one in four adults in some African countries were believed to be infected. "I just reached a pitch of frustration that we could be making so much more difference than we were," she says. The late Republican senator Jesse Helms told the New York Times in 1995 that he wanted to decrease funding for US domestic AIDS programs because the disease was spread by the "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct" of gays. It was then that the "AIDS industry" — Pisani’s term for the many national governments, NGOs, faith groups, pharmaceutical companies and do-gooder rock stars — finally got on board.
Helms changed his tune in 2000 when celebrities like Bono and Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, convinced him that HIV brings immeasurable suffering "to infants and children and their families." Helms was one of the driving forces behind the 2003 President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a five-year, $15-billion US program to fight the epidemic. (Recently renewed and increased substantially in July 2008.)
PEPFAR did raise the bar for funding HIV programs in developing countries but, Pisani points out, the same people who are silent about HIV as it rampages among gay men, drug users and sex workers in the West are also squeamish about helping gay men, drug users and sex workers in the rest of the world. Faith-based groups are singled out for special treatment under PEPFAR, despite the opposition of many churches to contraception and homosexuality. Only 20 percent of PEPFAR funds goes to prevention efforts and fully a third of that money promotes abstinence — an approach that doesn’t work — as the sole means of prevention. High-risk groups have been entirely overlooked. By law, donor recipients aren’t allowed to take PEPFAR funds if they intend to help sex workers do anything but get out of the business.
Brazil, which wants to regulate sex work, walked away from $40 million rather than yield to this demand. And to this day not a cent has gone toward harm-reduction programs for drug users, Pisani notes. There are also those who see PEPFAR as an investment rather than an act of mercy. In the first years of the project huge amounts of cash went toward buying brand name antiretroviral drugs and "Made in America" condoms rather than relying on cheaper, local versions. In Asia, where Pisani started tracking HIV-prevalence rates in 2001, close to 100 million people were being ignored or underserviced.
It was her job to figure out in which circles HIV was being spread, mainly through good old-fashioned field surveillance: sample some people and ask them about their behaviours. Pisani found that asking transgendered sex workers about condom negotiation and learning the street value of heroin in Jakarta turned out to be a lot like writing a good news story.
"I never thought I would be an arms-length number cruncher," Pisani says. "I was first and foremost a journalist and that means talking to people." Those people include Fuad, a young Indonesian long-haul truck driver who supplements his meagre income by selling sex to men, as does his girlfriend back home. Pisani spoke with Frankie, a former heroin user from Bali who used to share a single needle among dozens of his fellow inmates in prison. Pisani learned that in Indonesian jails heroin is cheaper than clean needles.
We meet Nancy, who is at ease talking about her work as the headmistress of an Indonesian network of MTF transsexual sex workers known as waria. She complains that her young charges have no respect for their elders, brazenly showing off their designer vaginas — bought at sex-change clinics in neighbouring Thailand — to potential clients. Nancy also works for Jakarta’s Department of Social Affairs teaching waria the practical skills they need for career options outside of sex work. But even in the face of high HIV- prevalence rates and a conservative Muslim theology that vilifies sex work and condom use, most waria remain sex workers either because the pay is too good or it’s the only job they’ve ever known. They choose.
"It’s less about the money than about the orgasms," Nancy explains to Pisani. "Let’s face it, we’re all human, we’ve all got to get laid." The book is full of such frank, often funny revelations from ordinary people. Combined with reams of statistical data collected from the red-light districts of Jakarta to the gay discos of Shanghai, Pisani comes to a simple but inescapable conclusion: sometimes people, for survival, fun or a combination of the two, take risks and they need help to do so more safely, not preaching and isolation. But Pisani is not just another angry scientist railing against conservative values.
She also tears a strip off liberal activists who have their own grab bag of failed policies, what she calls "the sacred cows of the AIDS industry." Many of the ideas central to prevention today, such as emphasizing peer education, using grassroots non-governmental organizations for outreach and pressing for a strict "voluntary testing only" rule, were borrowed from the playbooks of AIDS activists in gay communities in the ’80s. They were amazingly successful under the repressive conditions they faced but, according to Pisani, many of the underlying assumptions change when you go halfway around the world. Peer education?
Pisani says sex workers and drug users are more often rivals than friends, that small-scale outreach falls apart when your client base is too large or spread over too large an area, and that in some cases mandatory testing can break the wall of shame and stigma when followed up with care and support services. Pisani also unabashedly tears apart any notion that it’s preferable to spend money on universal prevention campaigns rather than target high-risk behaviours. She blames this mentality on the politicization of the issue — the back-and-forth between ideologies that has hindered epidemiologists’ efforts to treat HIV like any other infectious disease.
"That’s what it is, first and foremost," she says. "But now we’re in this weird situation where saying ‘HIV is a gay disease’ is stigmatizing to the gay community. So we say something else. Then awareness and condom use during anal sex drops and suddenly, HIV is a gay disease again…. If, in bending over backward to avoid stigmatizing people, you lose the ability to reach them it won’t work." It all sounds rather unkind. Then again public health has always been a rather fascistic discipline, Pisani concedes.
When behaviours prove frustratingly hard to change, sometimes you just need to fall back on the basics: condoms, clean needles and frank discussions about the risk factors for HIV transmission. "Everyone takes risks," she says. "It’s part of the human condition, thank God; how boring would life be if it weren’t? But people choose the risks they’re willing to take based upon a fairly complex cost/benefit model. It’s not perfect but the more information we give them the more sophisticated their analysis will be." Have her experiences made Pisani any more risk-averse? She laughs. "Oh God, no. I’m just as much of a slut as I ever was.
Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aPW2H.d6tkjY&refer=home
August 3, 2008
4
AIDS Prevention Focus Returns to Gay Men at Mexico Conference
by Shannon Pettypiece and John Lauerman
(Bloomberg) – Discrimination against men who have sex with men must end, and countries must gear up prevention programs against AIDS in this high-risk group, the secretary general of the United Nations said yesterday. Speaking at the opening ceremonies for the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, UN chief Ban Ki-moon was one of several world leaders and health officials who spoke about the need for targeting the epidemic among homosexual men.
Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization’s China unit, said health officials in all nations, including the U.S., need to acknowledge setbacks in a group that pioneered the earliest response to the disease. In the U.S., infections among gay men have risen 75 percent in 15 years, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We need to engage them, we need to take care of them, we should not forget about them,” Chan said, referring to the homosexual community worldwide.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, former Botswana President Festus Mogae and President of St. Kitts and Nevis Denzil Douglas each called for the end of discrimination against gay men in a news conference at the meeting. Mogae and Douglas said they’ll work with leaders in Africa and the Caribbean to create new prevention programs. More than a quarter of gay men in these regions, including Jamaica, Kenya, and Ghana, are infected, according to the United Nations. Despite a quarter-century of activism and awareness, gay populations have been overlooked because of discrimination and criminalization in some countries, said Peter Piot, the executive director of New York-based UNAIDS, the agency that coordinates care and research.
`Against the Law’
“In many countries homosexual activity is against the law,” Piot said in an interview at the meeting. “It is underground and impossible to organize these programs.” About 33 million people are infected with the AIDS virus worldwide, and 2.7 million of them contracted HIV, the virus that causes the disease, last year, according to a report from UNAIDS. The number of deaths dropped by about 10 percent to 2 million, the report said. Most of the 179 countries reporting to the United Nations on the epidemic make no mention of the virus in homosexual men, said Kevin Frost, chief executive officer of AmFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. AmFAR tomorrow is scheduled to release a report at the conference on the prevalence of HIV in gay men worldwide. Homosexuality is illegal and punished in many African countries, making it extremely difficult to recognize men at risk and provide them with prevention, Frost said. In low- and middle-income countries, the rate of infection in men who have sex with men is 13 percent, he said.
Broad Message
In the U.S., the government has pushed a broad message targeting everyone, rather than focusing on the hardest hit populations, said Phil Curtis, director of government affairs at AIDS Project Los Angeles. He said there needs to be at least another $1 billion in prevention funding and more precise messaging to address the gay community. The failure to slow HIV in gay men puts the U.S. alongside countries in Asia and Africa that aren’t confronting the disease in this population, Frost said. “What the CDC data did was illuminate just how poorly we’re doing,” he said today in an interview at the conference. “We’re doing a lousy job of recognizing the depth of the epidemic in men having sex with men, and targeting our resources so we can change the trajectory of the epidemic.”
In the U.S., 72 percent of infections in males are in those who engage in sex with other men, according to AmFAR. Especially hard hit are gay black men, of whom about 46 percent are infected, according to a 2005 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in Mexico City at spettypiece@bloomberg.net; John Lauerman in Mexico City at jlauerman@bloomberg.net.
South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/health/sfl-flaaids0807sbaug07,0,3600157.story
August 7, 2008
5
UN chief: End bias against gay men
by Shannon Pettypiece and John Lauerman
(Bloomberg News) – Discrimination against men who have sex with men must end, and countries must gear up prevention programs against AIDS in this high-risk group, the secretary general of the United Nations said Wednesday. Speaking at the opening ceremonies for the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, UN chief Ban Ki-moon was one of several world leaders and health officials who spoke about the need to focus on the epidemic among homosexual men.
Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization, said health officials in all nations, including the United States, need to acknowledge setbacks in a group that pioneered the earliest response to the disease. In the United States, infections among gay men have risen 75 percent in 15 years, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We need to engage them, we need to take care of them, we should not forget about them," Chan said, referring to the homosexual community worldwide.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon, former Botswanan President Festus Mogae and President of St. Kitts and Nevis Denzil Douglas each called for the end of discrimination against gay men in a news conference at the meeting. Mogae and Douglas said they’ll work with leaders in Africa and the Caribbean to create new prevention programs. More than a quarter of gay men in these regions, including Jamaica, Kenya and Ghana, are infected, according to the United Nations. Despite a quarter-century of activism and awareness, gay populations have been overlooked because of discrimination and criminalization in some countries, said Peter Piot, the executive director of New York-based UNAIDS, the agency that coordinates care and research.
innewsweekly.com
http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Ne&article_code=5904
August 14, 2008
6
Olympics Still Rough Terrain for Openly Gay Athletes Fear of Losing Sponsors, Alienating Fans Keep Many Athletes in the Closet
by Ryan Lee
The 4×200 meter freestyle relay at the 1984 Olympics has been dubbed “the perfect race” by swimming aficionados. Just a year after that race, “the nation’s best all around freestyle swimmer” was 22 years old and in peak physical condition — and ready to walk away from competitive swimming for good. “I feel like I had a great Olympic experience, but I definitely feel that I wasn’t entirely comfortable in that environment,” said Bruce Hayes, who won the gold medal in that event by .04 seconds. Hayes may have conquered “the Albatross” in the pool, but he continued to be burdened by a different kind of albatross within the swimming world — being gay. “I think I had the same kind of fears that anyone coming out has, particularly since it was 24 years ago, but I think the environment actually made it worse,” Hayes said. “When you’re in an athletic environment, when you live in that environment year-round, there’s just not a comfort level of coming out and sharing that kind of information with people.”
Hayes never encountered any outright hostility from coaches and teammates within USA Swimming, but the high-pressure atmosphere and tunnel vision of Olympic training didn’t allow space for Hayes to deal with his personal struggles. “It wasn’t like they were homophobic, but they just weren’t sensitized to it,” Hayes said. “I wouldn’t say there was any kind of sensitivity to the fact that one of their athletes might be gay.” Even the triumph of winning an Olympic gold medal couldn’t settle the discontent within Hayes, and a year after his stunning victory over the West Germans, he retired from swimming. “I think I would’ve continued had I felt comfortable being myself, but I didn’t, and I really kind of felt like I had to give up swimming to come out,” Hayes said. “I don’t know if it was a conscious choice, even; but now when I look back and wonder why I didn’t go forward, that was definitely one of the reasons, in the back of my mind.”
More than two-dozen former Olympians have come out as gay or lesbian, although most did so after retiring. Three openly gay athletes are competing in the Beijing Olympics, but none are representing the United States. Two lesbian athletes from Germany — cyclist Judith Arndt and fencer Imke Duplitzer — are returning to the Olympics after previous performances, while 20-year-old Australian diver Matthew Mitcham is making his Olympic debut. The International Olympic Committee has become more welcoming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender athletes in recent years, including allowing post-operative transgender athletes to compete for the first time during the 2004 Olympics in Athens. The IOC has also worked with Mitcham to ensure that his boyfriend will be able to attend the Beijing Games, according to Kelly Stevens, communications director for the Federation of Gay Games, an Olympics-style competition for gay athletes.
Organizers of the Gay Games have been in contact with Mitcham, Arndt and Duplitzer to offer support and an extended cheerleading section. “Everything helps,” said Stevens, who added that there are likely many more gay athletes competing in Beijing who have not come out of the closet. “And there might be some others out there who are out to their family or friends, but they’re not talking to the press.” The limited number of out Olympians is a bit surprising, but isn’t indicative of an anti-gay climate at the Olympic Games, Stevens said. “I would think we’re at a time when it’s easier for people to be out, particularly in the developing nations,” Stevens said. “I don’t think that it’s a measurement of the Olympics itself, I think it’s a measure of [athletes’] own countries.”
fridae.com
http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/article.php?articleid=2275&viewarticle=1
August 8, 2008
7
11 out gay/bi athletes to watch at the Olympic Games
by News Editor
Only 11 of the 11,000 athletes at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games are known to be openly gay or bisexual – and of which only one is a gay man. Of 10,708 athletes from a record number of 205 participating countries at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games which opens on Friday, only 11 are known to be openly gay or bisexual; of which only one is a gay man. Outsports.com’s Jim Buzinski, who initially counted five athletes but later amended the list to 11 after being alerted by readers who had written in, listed one gay man Australian Matthew Mitcham (diving), one female bisexual American Vicky Galindo (softball), and nine lesbians: Judith Arndt (Germany, cycling), Imke Duplitzer (Germany, fencing), Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg (Norway, handball and a lesbian couple), Natasha Kai (US, soccer), Lauren Lappin (US, softball); Victoria "Vickan" Svensson (Sweden, soccer); Rennae Stubbs (Australia, tennis) and Linda Bresonik (Germany, soccer).
The most well known of the lot is undisputedly Mitcham who made a splash around the world for being the first openly gay Australian man to compete in the Games. On May 24, The Sydney Morning Herald broke the news of his being gay in "Out, proud and ready to go for gold." The 20-year-old diver told a gay Sydney newspaper that he had not intended to come out and was just answering a question a question posed to him by the journalist.
He was quoted in SXNews as saying: "I came out years ago. All that happened recently was that I was doing an interview with the Herald and there was a pretty innocuous question, ‘Who do I live with?’ and I just said ‘my partner Lachlan’. And the journalist was really excited – she thought it was absolutely wonderful!" The former trampoline athlete is expected to have a serious shot at a medal in Beijing after winning gold in the 10m platform event at the 2008 Diving Grand Prix in Fort Lauderdale, USA.
Australian women’s tennis doubles player Rennae Stubbs His compatriot women’s tennis doubles player Rennae Stubbs, who’s representing Australia at the Olympics for the fourth time, came out in The Age newspaper in 2001. "I always say to my friends, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if everybody who was gay said they were? If we said: February 21, or whatever, this is the coming out day. So, if you are, you have to come out to everybody you know’. It would be phenomenal. And it would be nice if everybody could just accept that it’s not a choice, this is who you are. You would never, ever choose this, choose to be gay.
It’s such a difficult thing to deal with and coming out to people and talking about it, and coming out to your family. But I don’t hide who I am any more. Everyone in the tennis world pretty much knows who’s gay and who’s not; the only reason I would like it spoken about publicly more is that I wish everybody would realise that, ‘See all those people you admire? Out of 10 of them, four are gay, and I just want you to know that your child can still idolise them’."
Buzinski, a former sports editor and co-founder of the Outsports web site, stressed that while there are possibly many more gay athletes at the Games, the list comprises only those who can be "determine(d) to be ‘publicly out,’ having discussed their sexuality openly in some manner." He further cited various reasons why athletes are not openly gay from "the effects on performance, interaction with teammates, fans and the media, and, in some cases, endorsements. In addition, the vast majority of Olympic athletes are under 30, a time when even people who are not elite jocks are wrestling with their sexuality. Being an Olympic athlete requires full-time dedication and a lot of things get put on hold. It is just easier to hide and deal with one’s sexuality later.
copenhagen2009.org
http://www.copenhagen2009.org/Conference/Call_for_Workshops.aspx?p=1
8
Call for Workshops
With this call for workshops we invite you to propose a workshop for the conference. Any proposal relating to the conference themes and consistent with the goal of equality for LGBT persons will be considered. Please read the general information. The deadline for the submission of abstracts for workshop proposals is October 1st 2008. Find more information on how to submit a workshop proposal here.
To submit a proposal is not the same as to register for the conference. To register for World Outgames 2009 you have to pay the conference fee. To reserve a place at the conference, workshop presenters should register as early as possible, even if they have not yet submitted their workshop proposal or have not yet heard whether their proposal has been accepted. Workshop presenters must also cover their own travel and accommodation expenses.
Financial support
Participants who are unable to pay the conference fee and/or their own travel and accommodation expenses, especially participants from other locations than Canada, the United States, Western Europe, Israel, Japan, Australia and New Zealand can apply for the Outreach Program. The deadline for Outreach applications is 1 October 2008
pinknews.co.uk
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9118.html
September 26, 2008
9
Nations pledge to support gay rights at UN meeting
by Tony Grew
Several countries have responded positively to recommendations on gay rights at the 8th session of the UN Human Rights Council. During the session Ireland and Slovenia expressed concern at the maintenance of the death penalty for homosexuality in Iran and criticised Nigeria for failing to follow up on recommendations to repeal the death penalty for consensual sexual conduct. "In reply, Nigeria stated that no executions have taken place, and asserted that the maximum penalty for consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults is 14 years’ imprisonment," according to a recent report on the June session from LGBT rights group ARC International.
Ecuador, the Czech Republic and Japan were among nations that accepted recommendations to further address discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, However, the Ukraine said they would not apply the Yogyakarta Principles as a guide to assist in policy development. The principles were adopted by a meeting of experts in international law in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2006. They set out a legal standard for how governments and other agencies should end violence, abuse and discrimination against sexual minorities.
Switzerland rejected a proposals that federal legislation be introduced to prohibit discrimination, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, that the Yogyakarta Principles be applied to enhance the Government’s commitment to non-discrimination, and that the rights accorded to same-sex couples be equivalent to those accorded to opposite-sex couples.
Benin rejected calls to decriminalise homosexuality. Zambia said it would not to decriminalise same-sex activity between consenting adults or develop HIV/AIDS programmes to respond to the needs of sexually-active gay men. Egypt said killings based on sexual orientation do not warrant the same degree of attention or concern as killings based on race. Pakistan rejected calls to decriminalise adultery and non-marital consensual sex, claiming the recommendations fall outside "universally recognised human rights."
However, there were positive commitments from some EU nations. Romania agreed to develop awareness-raising programmes, including for law enforcement personnel, to promote respect for persons of minority sexual orientations or gender identities, to punish ill-treatment of sexual minorities in detention, to take additional measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, and to protect the rights of LGBT activists to participate in peaceful public gatherings, such as the GayFest.
Poland accepted recommendations to adopt an anti-discrimination law, including on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, to withdraw any restrictions on addressing issues of homosexuality within educational establishments, and to ensure respect for the freedom of expression and association of those campaigning for equality on grounds of sexual orientation. The UK agreed to follow the Council of the European Union Asylum Qualification Directive with regard to sexual orientation as grounds for seeking asylum.
Click here to read a report on the 8th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
pinknews.co.uk
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-9235.html
October 7, 2008
10
United Nations calls on UK to stop discrimination against LGBT teens
by Tony Grew
A United Nations committee has called on the UK to take "urgent measures" to fight intolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans young people. The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) met last month. It is one of seven UN-linked human rights treaty bodies. Countries that have signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child are required to submit regular reports on how it is being implemented to the Committee, made up of independent experts who make recommendations. The UK submitted its report at the meeting.
The Committee’s ‘concluding observations’ mention LGBT young people for what is thought to be the first time. It welcomed the new Equality Bill, which it said provided "clear opportunities to mainstream children’s right to non-discrimination into the UK anti-discrimination law." It is due before Parliament in this session.
"However, the Committee is concerned that in practice certain groups of children, such as: Roma and Irish Travellers’ children; migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee children; lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender children (LBGT); children belonging to minority groups, continue to experience discrimination and social stigmatisation. The Committee is also concerned at the general climate of intolerance and negative public attitudes towards children, especially adolescents, which appears to exist, including in the media, and may be often the underlying cause of further infringements of their rights."
CRC recommended that the UK government:
a) take urgent measures to address the intolerance and inappropriate characterisation of children, especially adolescents, within the society, including the media;
b) strengthen its awareness-raising and other preventive activities against discrimination and, if necessary, take affirmative actions for the benefit of vulnerable groups of children, such as: Roma and Irish Travellers’ children; migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee children; lesbian, bisexual, gay, and transgender children (LBGT); children belonging to minority groups;
c) take all necessary measures to ensure that cases of discrimination against children in all sectors of society are addressed effectively, including with disciplinary, administrative or – if necessary – penal sanctions.
The UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. It sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. Nations that ratify it are bound under international law. The US has signed the treaty but not completed the ratification process due to opposition from conservatives and religious fundamentalists. 193 states are party to the Convention. The issue of LGBT rights has been contentious at the UN.
At a recent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council Benin rejected calls to decriminalise homosexuality. Zambia said it would not to decriminalise same-sex activity between consenting adults or develop HIV/AIDS programmes to respond to the needs of sexually-active gay men. Egypt said killings based on sexual orientation do not warrant the same degree of attention or concern as killings based on race. Pakistan rejected calls to decriminalise adultery and non-marital consensual sex, claiming the recommendations fall outside "universally recognised human rights."
In more positive developments, in September the French minister of human rights and foreign affairs said she will appeal at the United Nations for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality. Until the end of 2008 France will speak for all EU member states at the UN General Assembly, as they hold the rotating Presidency of the European Union. Earlier this year it was reported that the French initiative on decrminalisation will take the form of a solemn declaration from UN states, rather than a vote in the UN on the matter.
However, Rama Yade said in September that France will submit a draft declaration at the General Assembly in December. The British government also advocates universal decriminalisation.
fridae.com
http://www.fridae.com/newsfeatures/article.php?articleid=2337&viewarticle=1
November 19, 2008
11
ILGA at 30
by Douglas Sanders
The International Lesbian and Gay Association (now known as International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association) – more international than ever – held its 30th anniversary conference in elegant Vienna. But the conference had problems. Doug Sanders reports. The 30th anniversary World Conference of the International Lesbian and Gay Association was held in Vienna, Austria, Nov 3-6, 2008. Some 195 delegates represented over 80 countries. ILGA now has more than 600 member organisations in all parts of the world.Looking at the delegates, Gloria Careaga from Mexico, the new Female Co-Secretary General, said that ILGA had become “a truly international organisation.” This was new, she was saying. A larger percentage of delegates were from Africa, Asia and Latin America than in the past.
Three things had happened. The biennial ILGA World was being held immediately after the annual ILGA Europe conference, also in Vienna. European attendance was down for the world event, because many individuals could not take off two weeks in a row, particularly in October and November. Secondly, there was extra money for scholarships for people from the global South. Attendance from Africa, Latin America and Asia was strong. For once Europeans did not clearly dominate. And North Americans, never big ILGA supporters, were outnumbered by Latins. Thirdly, the Quebec City hosts for ILGA World had backed out. HOSI Wien, the Austrian host of ILGA Europe, agreed to host both, but it had to be a smaller world conference than usual. This affected the balance between north and south.
ILGA World in Vienna was more international than in the past, but it was not a great conference. There were more delegates at ILGA Europe than at ILGA World. ILGA Europe had a real program, with panels and special speakers. The ILGA World program was limited. There were three outside speakers in the opening session and, later, two in-house plenary panels presented by the women’s secretariat and the transgender secretariat. The Vienna program could not compare with the excellent presentations at ILGA World in Geneva two years earlier. That had been a larger conference and it had not suffered from a late relocation.
ILGA World has always been dependent upon the local hosting organisations for the world conferences. So the late shift to Vienna was a serious blow that will probably not be repeated. The next conference will be in Rio de Janeiro, with strong local organisations and the enthusiastic Lula government with its “Brazil without Homophobia” campaign – the most progressive government program in the world. The Vienna conference will be remembered for a tragedy. Philipp Braun, longtime German activist and Male Co-Secretary General, had an emotional breakdown during the conference. All sides praised his work in strengthening the organisation. But, uncertain whether Philipp would be able to carry on in the position, the conference re-opened nominations for the position (which had been unopposed).
There was a heated debate whether the reopening was allowed by the constitution. The two election commissioners opposed reopening, and resigned when the conference voted to reopen. New commissioners were chosen. The three day conference was then dominated by a long series of nominations and votes. Philipp Braun, now absent, was continued as a candidate. Two separate votes led to Renato Sabbedini of Italy, a member of the Executive Board of ILGA Europe, replacing Philipp Braun as Male Co-Secretary General.
The final, very surprising vote, was for the Alternate Male Co-Secretary General. Sahran Abeysundara of Sri Lanka, the Asian male representative on the ILGA World board, got 99 votes. Philipp Braun got 101. Female co-secretary general Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, whom many found difficult to work with, stepped down after seven years. The two new Secretary Generals are Gloria Careaga of Mexico and Renato Sabbedini of Italy. Both are long-time activists.
There were various changes to the corporate structure and the constitution. The full name of ILGA is now “the International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association (historically known as ILGA).” A motion to change the acronym to ILGTA was defeated on two grounds – ILGA could be pronounced as a word, and ILGTA could not – secondly, while trans would have been included, bisexuals and intersexuals would have been left out. The end result was to expand the named constituency only in the “full name,” retaining the familiar ILGA acronym.
Trans, both MTF and FTM, were very visible and active in the conference. A Trans Secretariat had been established at the Geneva Conference, based in a Peruvian organisation. It had been very active since Geneva, though it needs to engage with African and Asian groups. As seems typical with ILGA World conferences, there was little continuity in leadership. The last Secretary Generals were not there. There was an elegant appearance by the Austrian/American Secretary General of 15 years earlier, in a formal black evening coat at the parliamentary reception. As well, Jori Petit from Barcelona and Rebecca Sevilla from Peru, earlier leaders, were present, though neither participated in sessions. The previous ILGA Asia co-chairs were absent.
Asian representation was spotty, though there are now 83 Asian member organisations. Asians in Vienna were from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia (based in Korea), Myanmar (based in Thailand), Nepal, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. Joey Mataele of Tonga was the one Pacific Islander. We usually get news only about right wing politicians in Austria, and it was repeatedly noted that the country has no registered partnership law (bucking the new European pattern). But Austria was a generous host. Vienna gave the conference 50,000 Euro – matched by the national government.
Day one saw a reception at the Vienna government’s neo-gothic Rad House. Day two we were in a mansion next to the neo-classical National Parliament, with the President of the Parliament hosting. Day three we were at an awards ceremony at the Bruno Kreisky Foundation (in the former premier’s home). Good food. Lots of wine. The US election occurred during the conference. There was great enthusiasm over Barack Obama’s victory, and a resolution to send a congratulatory telegram. Africans led chanting: “Long live the spirit of Obama! Long live! Long live! Long live the spirit of Obama. O – ba – ma! O – ba – ma!”
Oddly (to this Westerner), there was no discussion of the loss on same-sex marriage in California. And no comment on the fact that Obama’s position on marriage was no different from that of McCain. Obama, McCain, Bush and both Clintons all opposed “marriage.” All – even Bush in the end – favoured ‘registered partnership’ laws at the state level. Perhaps the loss on “marriage” in California meant little to Asians and Africans. For them marriage is not simply a distant goal, but an issue used against them by hostile public opinion.
I have always found ILGA conferences, whether well-planned or not, to be energising events. ILGA World Vienna had the usual good spirits, particularly, I think, for new delegates. The program was disappointing – compared to ILGA Europe, ILGA in Geneva or even the ILGA conference in Chiang Mai in January, 2008. But the people were great. This is probably the only account of the ILGA World conference you will see. Even Rex Wockner, who provides a news feed for LGBTI media all over the world, has had no mention of it. Of course he was covering the hot breaking US news. He is based in California.
Probably no press release went out from ILGA. ILGA World is still a struggling organisation, and the Vienna conference was small and very internally focused. It was a serious dip down from Geneva, in spite of the good work of host organisation Hosi Wein. What can I say to end on an upbeat note? See you in Rio! That will be a great conference! Don’t miss it.
Douglas Sanders is a retired Canadian law professor, living in Bangkok. He can be contacted at sanders_gwb @ yahoo.ca
news.yahoo.com
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_med_challenging_aids
November 30, 2008
12
Global AIDS crisis overblown? Some dare to say so
By Maria Cheng, AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng, Ap Medical Writer
London – As World AIDS Day is marked on Monday, some experts are growing more outspoken in complaining that AIDS is eating up funding at the expense of more pressing health needs. They argue that the world has entered a post-AIDS era in which the disease’s spread has largely been curbed in much of the world, Africa excepted.
"AIDS is a terrible humanitarian tragedy, but it’s just one of many terrible humanitarian tragedies," said Jeremy Shiffman, who studies health spending at Syracuse University. Roger England of Health Systems Workshop, a think tank based in the Caribbean island of Grenada, goes further. He argues that UNAIDS, the U.N. agency leading the fight against the disease, has outlived its purpose and should be disbanded. "The global HIV industry is too big and out of control. We have created a monster with too many vested interests and reputations at stake, … too many relatively well paid HIV staff in affected countries, and too many rock stars with AIDS support as a fashion accessory," he wrote in the British Medical Journal in May.
Paul de Lay, a director at UNAIDS, disagrees. It’s valid to question AIDS’ place in the world’s priorities, he says, but insists the turnaround is very recent and it would be wrong to think the epidemic is under control. "We have an epidemic that has caused between 55 million and 60 million infections," de Lay said. "To suddenly pull the rug out from underneath that would be disastrous."
U.N. officials roughly estimate that about 33 million people worldwide have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Scientists say infections peaked in the late 1990s and are unlikely to spark big epidemics beyond Africa. In developed countries, AIDS drugs have turned the once-fatal disease into a manageable illness. England argues that closing UNAIDS would free up its $200 million annual budget for other health problems such as pneumonia, which kills more children every year than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
"By putting more money into AIDS, we are implicitly saying it’s OK for more kids to die of pneumonia," England said. His comments touch on the bigger complaint: that AIDS hogs money and may damage other health programs. By 2006, AIDS funding accounted for 80 percent of all American aid for health and population issues, according to the Global Health Council.
In Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and elsewhere, donations for HIV projects routinely outstrip the entire national health budgets. In a 2006 report, Rwandan officials noted a "gross misallocation of resources" in health: $47 million went to HIV, $18 million went to malaria, the country’s biggest killer, and $1 million went to childhood illnesses. "There needs to be a rational system for how to apportion scarce funds," said Helen Epstein, an AIDS expert who has consulted for UNICEF, the World Bank, and others.
AIDS advocates say their projects do more than curb the virus; their efforts strengthen other health programs by providing basic health services. But across Africa, about 1.5 million doctors and nurses are still needed, and hospitals regularly run out of basic medicines. Experts working on other health problems struggle to attract money and attention when competing with AIDS.
"Diarrhea kills five times as many kids as AIDS," said John Oldfield, executive vice president of Water Advocates, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that promotes clean water and sanitation. "Everybody talks about AIDS at cocktail parties," Oldfield said. "But nobody wants to hear about diarrhea," he said. These competing claims on public money are likely to grow louder as the world financial meltdown threatens to deplete health dollars.
"We cannot afford, in this time of crisis, to squander our investments," Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO’s director-general, said in a recent statement. Some experts ask whether it makes sense to have UNAIDS, WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Global Fund plus countless other AIDS organizations, all serving the same cause.
"I do not want to see the cause of AIDS harmed," said Shiffman of Syracuse University. But "For AIDS to crowd out other issues is ethically unjust." De Lay argues that the solution is not to reshuffle resources but to boost them. "To take money away from AIDS and give it to diarrheal diseases or onchocerciasis (river blindness) or leishmaniasis (disfiguring parasites) doesn’t make any sense," he said. "We’d just be doing a worse job in everything else."
December 11, 2008
13
UN: General Assembly to Address Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Statement affirms promise of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(New York) – As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN General Assembly will hear a statement in mid-December endorsed by more than 50 countries across the globe calling for an end to rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity. A coalition of international human rights organizations today urged all the world’s nations to support the statement in affirmation of the UDHR’s basic promise: that human rights apply to everyone.
Nations on four continents are coordinating the statement, including: Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, France, Gabon, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. The reading of the statement will be the first time the General Assembly has formally addressed rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
"In 1948 the world’s nations set forth the promise of human rights, but six decades later, the promise is unfulfilled for many," said Linda Baumann of Namibia, a board member of Pan Africa ILGA, a coalition of over 60 African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups. "The unprecedented African support for this statement sends a message that abuses against LGBT people are unacceptable anywhere, ever."
The statement is non-binding, and reaffirms existing protections for human rights in international law. It builds on a previous joint statement supported by 54 countries, which Norway delivered at the UN Human Rights Council in 2006. "Universal means universal, and there are no exceptions," said Boris Dittrich of the Netherlands, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program. "The UN must speak forcefully against violence and prejudice, because there is no room for half measures where human rights are concerned."
The draft statement condemns violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also condemns killings and executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights on those grounds. "Today, dozens of countries still criminalize consensual homosexual conduct, laws that are often relics of colonial rule," said Grace Poore of Malaysia, who works with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "This statement shows a growing global consensus that such abusive laws have outlived their time."
The statement also builds on a long record of UN action to defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. In its 1994 decision in Toonen v. Australia, the UN Human Rights Committee – the body that interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the UN’s core human rights treaties – held that human rights law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since then, the United Nations’ human rights mechanisms have condemned violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including killings, torture, rape, violence, disappearances, and discrimination in many areas of life. UN treaty bodies have called on states to end discrimination in law and policy.
Other international bodies have also opposed violence and discrimination against LGBT people, including the Council of Europe and the European Union. In 2008, all 34 member countries of the Organization of American States unanimously approved a declaration affirming that human rights protections extend to sexual orientation and gender identity. "Latin American governments are helping lead the way as champions of equality and supporters of this statement," said Gloria Careaga Perez of Mexico, co-secretary general of ILGA. "Today a global movement supports the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and those voices will not be denied."
So far, 55 countries have signed onto the General Assembly statement, including: Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chile, Ecuador, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Uruguay, and Venezuela. All 27 member states of the European Union are also signatories.
"It is a great achievement that this initiative has made it to the level of the General Assembly," said Louis-Georges Tin of France, president of the International Committee for IDAHO (International Day against Homophobia), a network of activists and groups campaigning for decriminalization of homosexual conduct. "It shows our common struggles are successful and should be reinforced."
"This statement has found support from states and civil society in every region of the world," said Kim Vance of Canada, co-director of ARC International. "In December a simple message will rise from the General Assembly: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is truly universal."
The coalition of international human rights organizations that issued this statement include: Amnesty International; ARC International; Center for Women’s Global Leadership; COC Netherlands; Global Rights; Human Rights Watch; IDAHO Committee; International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC); International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA); and Public Services International.
For more information, please contact:
In New York for Human Rights Watch, Scott Long (English):
+1-212-216-1297; or +1-646-641-5655; or longs@hrw.org
In London for Amnesty International, Kate Sheill
(English: +44-20-7413-5748; or ksheill@amnesty.org
In Halifax, for ARC International, Kim Vance (English, French):
+1-902-488-6404
In Geneva for ARC International, John Fisher (English, French):
+41-79-508-3968; or arc@arc-international.net
In Amsterdam for COC Netherlands, Bjorn van Roozendall (Dutch, English):
+31-6-22-55-83-00; or bvanroozendaal@coc.nl
In Washington for Global Rights, Stefano Fabeni (English, Italian, Spanish):
+1 202-741-5049; or stefanof@globalrights.org
In New York for IGLHRC, Hossein Alizadeh (English, Persian):
+1-212-430-6016; or halizadeh@iglhrc.org
In Brussels for ILGA, Stephen Barris (English, French, Spanish):
+32-2-502-2471; or stephenbarris@ilga.org; or in New York, +39 33-5-606-7158, or media@ilga.org (December 14-18)
======================================
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) is a leading human rights organization solely devoted to improving the rights of people around the world who are targeted for imprisonment, abuse or death because of their sexuality, gender identity or HIV/AIDS status. IGLHRC addresses human rights violations by partnering with and supporting activists in countries around the world, monitoring and documenting human rights abuses, engaging offending governments, and educating international human rights officials. A non-profit, non-governmental organization, IGLHRC is based in New York, with offices in Cape Town and Buenos Aires. Visit http://www.iglhrc.org for more information
hrw.org
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/11/un-general-assembly-address-sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity
December 11, 2008
14
UN: General Assembly to Address Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity:
Statement affirms promise of Universal Declaration of Human Rights
As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN General Assembly will hear a statement in mid-December endorsed by more than 50 countries across the globe calling for an end to rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
A coalition of international human rights organizations today urged all the world’s nations to support the statement in affirmation of the UDHR’s basic promise: that human rights apply to everyone. Nations on four continents are coordinating the statement, including: Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, France, Gabon, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. The reading of the statement will be the first time the General Assembly has formally addressed rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
"In 1948 the world’s nations set forth the promise of human rights, but six decades later, the promise is unfulfilled for many," said Linda Baumann of Namibia, a board member of Pan Africa ILGA, a coalition of over 60 African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups. "The unprecedented African support for this statement sends a message that abuses against LGBT people are unacceptable anywhere, ever." The statement is non-binding, and reaffirms existing protections for human rights in international law. It builds on a previous joint statement supported by 54 countries, which Norway delivered at the UN Human Rights Council in 2006.
"Universal means universal, and there are no exceptions," said Boris Dittrich of the Netherlands, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program. "The UN must speak forcefully against violence and prejudice, because there is no room for half measures where human rights are concerned." The draft statement condemns violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also condemns killings and executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights on those grounds.
"Today, dozens of countries still criminalize consensual homosexual conduct, laws that are often relics of colonial rule," said Grace Poore of Malaysia, who works with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. "This statement shows a growing global consensus that such abusive laws have outlived their time."
The statement also builds on a long record of UN action to defend the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. In its 1994 decision in Toonen v. Australia, the UN Human Rights Committee – the body that interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), one of the UN’s core human rights treaties – held that human rights law prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Since then, the United Nations’ human rights mechanisms have condemned violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, including killings, torture, rape, violence, disappearances, and discrimination in many areas of life. UN treaty bodies have called on states to end discrimination in law and policy.
Other international bodies have also opposed violence and discrimination against LGBT people, including the Council of Europe and the European Union. In 2008, all 34 member countries of the Organization of American States unanimously approved a declaration affirming that human rights protections extend to sexual orientation and gender identity. "Latin American governments are helping lead the way as champions of equality and supporters of this statement," said Gloria Careaga Perez of Mexico, co-secretary general of ILGA. "Today a global movement supports the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and those voices will not be denied."
So far, 55 countries have signed onto the General Assembly statement, including: Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cape Verde, the Central African Republic, Chile, Ecuador, Georgia, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Montenegro, New Zealand, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Uruguay, and Venezuela. All 27 member states of the European Union are also signatories.
"It is a great achievement that this initiative has made it to the level of the General Assembly," said Louis-Georges Tin of France, president of the International Committee for IDAHO (International Day against Homophobia), a network of activists and groups campaigning for decriminalization of homosexual conduct. "It shows our common struggles are successful and should be reinforced."
"This statement has found support from states and civil society in every region of the world," said Kim Vance of Canada, co-director of ARC International. "In December a simple message will rise from the General Assembly: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is truly universal."
hrw.org
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/17/sodomy-laws-show-survival-colonial-injustice
December 17, 2008
15
‘Sodomy’ Laws Show Survival of Colonial Injustice:
As India’s High Court Mulls Reform, Nations Should Repeal This Legacy
New York – More than half of the world’s remaining "sodomy" laws -criminalizing consensual homosexual conduct – are relics of British colonial rule, Human Rights Watch showed in a report published today. Human Rights Watch urged governments everywhere to affirm international human rights standards, and reject the oppressive legacies of colonialism, by repealing laws that criminalize consensual sexual activity among adults of the same sex.
The 66-page report, "This Alien Legacy: The Origins of ‘Sodomy’ Laws in British Colonialism," describes how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860. This year, the High Court in Delhi ended hearings in a years-long case seeking to decriminalize homosexual conduct there. A ruling in the landmark case is expected soon.
"Half the world’s countries that criminalize homosexual conduct do so because they cling to Victorian morality and colonial laws," said Scott Long, director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights program at Human Rights Watch. "Getting rid of these unjust remnants of the British Empire is long overdue." On December 18, 2008, the UN General Assembly will hear a statement signed by over 60 countries affirming that human rights protections include sexual orientation and gender identity.
Some national leaders have defended sodomy laws as reflections of indigenous cultures. Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, for example, has called gays and lesbians "un-African" and "worse than dogs and pigs." The Human Rights Watch report shows, however, that British colonial rulers brought in these laws because they saw the conquered cultures as morally lax on sexuality. The British also wanted to defend their own colonists against the "corrupting" effect of the colonies. One British viceroy of India warned that British soldiers could succumb to "replicas of Sodom and Gomorrah" as they acquired the "special Oriental vices." In the early 19th century, the British drafted a new model Indian Penal Code, finally put into force in 1860. Section 377 punished "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" with up to life imprisonment.
Versions of Section 377 spread across the British Empire, from Africa to Southeast Asia. Through it, British colonists imposed one view on sexuality, by force, on all their colonized peoples. Over time, these laws came to seek punishment against not particular acts but whole classes of people. The British, for instance, listed "eunuchs" – their term for India’s hijras, or transgender people – as a "criminal tribe" because they were prone to "sodomy." Simply for appearing in public, hijras could be arrested and jailed for up to two years.
Today, international human rights standards have compelled former colonial powers to acknowledge that these laws are wrong. England and Wales decriminalized homosexual conduct in 1967. The European Court of Human Rights found in 1981 that a surviving sodomy law in Northern Ireland violated fundamental rights protections. In 1994, the UN Human Rights Committee – which authoritatively interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) – held that sodomy laws violate the rights to privacy and to non-discrimination.
The laws nonetheless persist in many of Britain’s old colonial possessions. Moreover, the model British-era sodomy law made no distinction between consensual and non-consensual sex, or between sex among adults and sexual abuse of children. As a result, these surviving laws leave many rape victims and child victims of abuse without effective legal protection. "From Malaysia to Uganda, governments use these laws to harass civil society, restrict free expression, discredit enemies, and destroy lives," Long said. "And sodomy laws add to the spread of HIV/AIDS by criminalizing outreach to affected groups."
Colonies and countries that retain versions of this British sodomy law include:
* In Asia and the Pacific: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, India, Kiribati, Malaysia, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Myanmar (Burma), Nauru, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Western Samoa. (Governments that inherited the same British law, but have abolished it since include: Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.)
* In Africa: Botswana, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Swaziland, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Eleven former British colonies in the Caribbean also retain sodomy laws derived from a different British model than the one imposed on India.
pinknews.co.uk
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-10012.html
December 19, 2008
16
66 countries back UN statement on rights of sexual minorities
by Tony Grew
Yesterday a statement was read at the United Nations General Assembly in New York reiterating the universal human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. 66 nations signed the joint statement, among them all 27 EU member states. South Africa and the United States of America did not support the initiative. The statement, which was a French initiative, was read out by Argentina’s Ambassador the UN.
It does not create new rights and is not legally binding but instead builds on similar past initiatives. It affirms the principle of universality: that all human beings, irrespective of their sexual orientation or gender identity, are entitled to equal dignity and respect. No-one should be subject to violence, harassment, discrimination or abuse, solely because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Louis Georges Tin, the founder of the Inernational Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO), is behind the universal decriminalisation declaration. He met with Rama Yade, France’s minister of human rights and foreign affairs, earlier this year. In September she confirmed that she would appeal at the United Nations for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality. The statement quickly became an international effort.
A cross-regional group of states coordinated the drafting, including Brazil, Croatia, France, Gabon, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. The statement condemned killings, torture, arbitrary arrest, and "deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health." The participating countries urged all nations to "promote and protect human rights of all persons, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity," and to end all criminal penalties against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
According to calculations by ILGA (the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association) and other organisations, more than six dozen countries still have laws against consensual sex between adults of the same sex. The UN Human Rights Committee, which interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a core UN treaty, held in a historic 1994 decision that such laws are rights violations – and that human rights law forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In 2006 IDAHO initiated a global campaign to end the criminalisation of same-sex relationships and secured the support of dozens of international public figures, ranging from Nobel Prize winners to writers, clergy,
actors, musicans and academics.
"To decriminalise homosexuality worldwide is a battle for human rights," Mr Tin said. "IDAHO has worked hard for two years to promote this issue. For us, the UN statement is a great achievement. I want to thank the many other people and organisations who have worked with us since the beginning, and more recently. I also want to remind everyone that ending the criminalisation of same-sex love will be a long, hard battle. To love is not a crime."
The 66 countries that signed the joint UN statement for LGBT human rights are: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Timor-Leste, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
UK-based gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said: "This was history in the making. Totally ground-breaking. It is the first time that the UN General Assembly has been presented with a statement in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
human rights. Securing this statement at the UN is the result of an inspiring collective global effort by many LGBT and human rights organisations. Our collaboration, unity and solidarity have won us this success." As well as IDAHO, I pay tribute to the contribution and lobbying of Amnesty International; ARC International; Center for Women’s Global Leadership; COC Netherlands; Global Rights; Human Rights Watch; International Committee for IDAHO (the International Day Against Homophobia); International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC); International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association (ILGA); International Service for Human Rights; Pan Africa ILGA; and Public Services International.
"The UN statement goes much further than seeking the decriminalisation of same-sex acts. It condemns all human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity, urges countries to protect the human rights of LGBT people and to bring to justice those who violate these rights, and calls for human rights defenders who oppose homophobic and transphobic victimisation to be allowed to carry out their advocacy and humanitarian work unimpeded."
The New York Times reports that "nearly 60 nations" backed a counter statement read by Syria that claimed the gay rights "threatened to undermine the international framework of human rights by trying to normalise pedophilia, among other acts."
LGBT rights group ARC-International said: "The signatories overcame intense opposition from a group of governments that regularly try to block UN attention to violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Only 57 states signed an alternative text promoted by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. While affirming the "principles of non-discrimination and equality," they claimed that universal human rights did not include "the attempt to focus on the rights of certain persons."
