The D.C. Council on Tuesday voted to take a final step this year for gay rights, banning conversion therapy that seeks to turn gay teenagers into heterosexuals.
The unanimous council vote puts the District in the rare company of only California and New Jersey to ban the practice. It also raises the possibility that after legal challenges to bans in those states recently failed that similar efforts may proceed elsewhere. Read More
The impetus behind the Uganda Report on Violations Based on Sex Determination, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation is the conviction that no violation of rights or dignity based upon an individual’s actual or perceived sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation should go undocumented or unacknowledged.
By setting stringent evidentiary standards, and by erring on the side of caution when considering cases for inclusion in this report, the research team has been able to demonstrate conclusively that human rights violations against sexual minority groups are in fact taking place in Uganda. Read More
Gambia President Yahya Jammeh passed a brutal new anti-gay law calling for life sentences for "aggravated homosexuality." Days after the bill was passed many groups, including the European Union and US State Department have come out against the action, saying they are "deeply concerned."
Amnesty International recently reported that under the new law Gambian security forces were allegedly torturing people arrested in raids, threatening them with rape and pressuring them to confess to homosexual acts.
However, Gambian Foreign Minister Bala Garba Jahumpa has rebuffed criticism and stated the government will not allow acceptance of gay people to be a pre-condition for receiving aid "no matter how much aid is involved." He vowed not to engage with any ‘ungodly’ gays because they are ‘detrimental to human existence.’ Read More
Drafters of a revised anti-gay law want parliament to pass it in time to be a "Christmas gift" for Ugandans, a lawmaker said last week. "This bill is inconsistent with fundamental freedoms and human rights ... accepting it would be a display of weakness rather than leadership," said Asia Russell, Uganda-based director of international policy at Health GAP, an HIV advocacy group. Read More
The European Parliament voted for a report defining its input into the global future development policy. The report contains strong wording on LGBTI rights and sexual and reproductive health and rights. According to the Parliament, development policy should pay particular attention to “the protection and respect of the rights of migrants and minorities, including LGBTI people and people living with HIV.” Furthermore, the Parliament prioritises “universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
The report comes at a time of an increase in anti-LGBTI legislation, most recently in Gambia. Attempts by the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) to delete paragraphs on sexual and reproductive health and rights, were defeated by a wide margin. Read More
A committee comprising leading members of Uganda’s ruling party have prepared a new draft of legislation targeting LGBT people, according to Nicholas Opiyo, a human rights lawyer who obtained a leaked copy of the proposal.
The legislation would replace the Anti-Homosexuality Act, which was struck down on technical grounds in August following a global outcry. Opiyo, who is one of the lawyers for the legal team that successfully challenged the Anti-Homosexuality Act, said his sources “in cabinet and on the committee [working on the bill] have confirmed that this is the real draft bill."
The new bill is called the Prohibition of Promotion of Unnatural Sexual Practices Bill of 2014. Opiyo said, “It appears even worse, even more draconian than the law” it is intended to replace by going into much greater detail about what activities are criminalized. Read More
During the UN session of the 2014 Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Iran, member states presented a total of 291 recommendations to the Islamic Republic of Iran, including 11 that addressed sexual minorities.
As an example, Iceland recommended repealing laws that criminalise consensual same-sex sexual relations; amend laws and policies that treat homosexuality as a mental disorder and outlaw forced sterilisation and reparative therapies against LGBT individuals.
In response, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the Head of the Human Rights Council of the Judiciary in Iran, stated that under no circumstances will the Islamic Republic of Iran “accept imposing a lifestyle under the banner or umbrella of human rights”, indicating that the lifestyle of LGBT individuals in no circumstances or arguments can be legitimized and justified. Read More
A study from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Williams Institute suggests pro-LGBT laws can spur economic growth in developing countries.
The study used the Global Index on Legal Recognition of Homosexual Orientation, a Dutch research tool from the 1960s that ranks countries on whether they have decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults and seven other factors in relation to rights for gays and lesbians. Researchers also relied upon a preliminary transgender rights index that ranks countries on anti-discrimination laws and 15 other measures.
The Global Index on Legal Recognition of Homosexual Orientation ranks countries on a scale from zero to eight. And researchers concluded that a country’s gross domestic product was $320 — or three percent higher — for each point it gained on the index. Read More
When Latvia’s foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, declared on Twitter on Thursday that he was “proud to be gay,” the announcement was welcomed there by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights activists, who have faced open hostility from social conservatives in the former Soviet republic.
In neighboring countries, contrasting reactions to the minister’s declaration — and his statement, in Latvian, that he would also work for legal recognition for same-sex couples — seemed to reveal the contours of a cultural fault line on the issue in post-Cold War Europe between West and East. Read More
The' queen of the Cook Islands,' Takitumu paramount chief Marie Pa Ariki says it is unfair and unjust for gay people to be treated as criminals due to who they love and how they express that love.
The Cook Islands is one of several Pacific nations which still criminalise same-sex relations between men and offer no human rights protections to those who are widely ostracised for not being born heterosexual. Pa Ariki stated: "[Gay] people are knowledgeable and contribute to society and to home life," she says. "They are human like everyone else... we are all whanau." Read More
Lawmakers in Nepal are considering a draft law that singles out people with HIV and hepatitis B, contrary to recommendations from UNAIDS and the Global Commission on HIV and the Law.
According to the draft text, tweeted by IRIN Humanitarian News, Article 103 ‘Prohibition of transmission HIV’ of Chapter 5, Offenses against Public Interest, Health, Safety, Facilities and Morals, criminalises people who are “aware of knowledge of one’s own positive HIV or Hepatitis B status”, who “purposefully or knowingly commit acts that would transmit Hepatitis B or HIV, give blood or coerce to give blood or come into sexual contact without precautionary measures in place, or cause entry of blood, semen, saliva, or other bodily fluids into the body of another.” Read More