Blog: Perspectives

The second week of October 2010 saw the meeting of the CEDAW Committee in Geneva to consider the reports of various countries - including that of Uganda. Kasha N. Jacqueline, the Executive Director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), an organization that fights for the rights of lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in Uganda, attended that session along with an IGLHRC staff person, human rights activists from Uganda, Malta, and the Czech Republic, and several staff of the Malaysian NGO, International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific. These activists had the opportunity to engage in an interactive dialogue with the CEDAW Committee, presenting the key issues of their shadow reports and answering further questions the Committee had about their States’ human rights records.

Kasha spoke of the many violations and recommendations included in the FARUG shadow report, particularly noting the explicit exclusion of sexual minorities from the Ugandan Equal Opportunities Commission. However, she also brought to the Committee’s attention violations that had occurred only days before--when a Ugandan tabloid, “Rolling Stone,” printed a list of the names, pictures, and contact information of “known homosexuals,” including members of FARUG, with the headline “Hang Them.” As a result of that publication one of FARUG’s members, who had also contributed to the CEDAW shadow report, had been attacked at her house and on the street with stones being thrown at her.

Lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people in Asia and the Pacific Islands experience extra-judicial killings, torture, violence and rape, as well as discrimination in employment, education, housing and health services. These are the preliminary findings of the Advisory Council of Jurists (ACJ) of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF) that met August 3-5, 2010 in Bali, Indonesia. This independent body of legal experts has found that at least 17 API governments1 have failed to provide protections for LGBT people because their national laws, policies and practices are inconsistent with international human rights law.

In response to these realities for LGBT people in the region, the APF has begun the process of addressing discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity as a legitimate human rights issue requiring the attention of its member institutions that are National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). The fact that protecting the human rights of LGBT people has captured the attention and become a focus for the APF is pleasantly surprising. Surprising because, only three countries in the region have laws providing explicit protection of LGBT human rights2, while nineteen countries still have laws that criminalize consensual homosexual relations3. Many of the NHRIs that are members of the APF have never discussed – let alone considered – sexual orientation and gender identity as a human-rights issue. In fact, many state officials in the region view non-heteronormative sexual orientation and gender identity as anti-religious and counter cultural.

Desde que se aprobó el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo en Argentina, se han despertado dos debates: uno interesante y el otro no sé si es un debate.El debate interesante es el cuestionamiento del matrimonio como institución, como forma de vida e incluso iría más allá, cuestionar la misma pareja como único modo de relación amorosa, sexual. Respecto al matrimonio en sí, hay muchas cosas que decir ¿no ha sido durante siglos la forma de opresión más brutal, silenciosa y cotidiana para miles de mujeres, es decir, su esclavitud?; (esto ya lo decía Serafina Dávalos en 1907, ella fue la primera abogada y feminista del Paraguay, que, por cierto, nunca se casó y vivía con su “compañera inseparable” ). Me dirán que se trata del matrimonio heterosexual, sí… pero realmente podemos re-significar la institución?

Además, ¿no nos siguen vendiendo a todo el mundo el mito de amor eterno y del matrimonio como la forma de consolidarlo? O sea, el amor “verdadero” dura toda la vida y parece que queda más fijo si el Estado lo reconoce, (para alguna gente todavía más si es que dios lo bendice) por eso es tan difícil salir en casos de violencia doméstica, porque el mito del amor eterno-matrimonio no se cuestiona, no se mueve. No pensamos que es un mito, sino que pensamos que es algo que no alcanzamos porque fallamos en algo. Hay mucho que hablar sobre esto… ¿De verdad el matrimonio es la forma en la que queremos encasillarnos?; ¿No se trata de una estructura opresiva?; ¿Para que luchar para obtener la misma opresión que caracterizó a la heterosexualidad obligatoria?

The 18th Annual International AIDS Conference is being held in Vienna from the 18th - 23rd July 2010 under the theme "Rights Here, Right Now" - a theme that resonates with IGLHRC's overarching work to ensure "human rights for everyone, everywhere. "IGLHRC is participating in the AIDS conference as part of efforts to ensure that the needs and interests of LGBT communities and individuals are included in AIDS policies and programming. In addition to IGLHRC's Executive Director Cary Alan Johnson, Fernando D'Elio (Program Associate with Latin America and the Caribbean) and Chivuli Ukwimi (Health and Human Rights Program Officer in IGLHRC's Africa office) will be in attendance along with IGLHRC conference blogger Darrin Adams.

IGLHRC also facilitated the participation of three African LGBT activists and one activist from Haiti to participate in the week's events and sponsored a panel on health and human-rights responses to AIDS during the pre-conference meeting focused on the issues relating to men who have sex with men. This year's conference is an important moment for advocacy, coming as it does alongside an intensified push for expanded HIV treatment in order to meet the 2010 target year set by governments for the achievement of universal access to HIV service.

As I walked into the Vienna AIDS 2010 LGBT BBQ, sponsored by COC Netherlands and Schorer, I was struck by how many people from the conference were all in one place who also happened to be lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender. The diversity that is the International AIDS Conference was represented there - queer people with a diversity of nationalities, accents, languages and dress.

My friend and former colleague, with whom I worked in forming an LGBTI support group and MSM/WSW research in Lesotho, was there and one of the first things she said to me was, “There are so many gay people here, all in one place. It reminds me of your going away party when you left Lesotho.”

She was referring to a party I threw and to which I invited every LGBT person I knew as well as their friends and friends of friends. I not only wanted people to remember me, but I also wanted to give back to the community that had accepted me and included me with such open, welcoming arms. At my event in Lesotho, people could be who they are, with no toning down and nothing hidden.

What you are doing is a gesture to transform the world," said Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director, in his opening remarks for the Be Heard! MSM Global Forum pre-conference on July 17. Sidibe set the tone for this one-day event for over 300 MSM, LGBTI and allied advocates, leaders and participants. Morning and afternoon sessions focused on the theory and practice in MSM and LGBTI HIV prevention, care and support. More detailed information can be found on the MSMGF web site here.

Again and again, "Be Heard!" was emphatically pronounced with such force, calling us to stand up and, well, be heard. But what does it look like to "be heard"? For me, it is not limited to marching and rallying with posters and chants nor is the phrase exclusive to activists who are loudly expressive in their call for equal rights. Being heard can be found in those still, small moments like coming out to that first person or bringing a friend to a local support group meeting for LGBT people.