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Korea: LGBT Students In Danger Of Being Left Out Of Non-Discrimination Protections
December 21, 2011| Contributed by Grace Poore, Regional Program Coordinator for Asia, IGLHRC
The Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council in Seoul, Korea has singled out sexual orientation and gender identity for exclusion from the draft bill of Seoul Students Rights Ordinance that can become law on December 19 in Korea’s capital city unless human rights activists manage to delay the bill or change the minds of the Education Committee. If passed, the Students Rights Ordinance will be the first initiative to explicitly protect students’ rights in Korea.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has sent an urgent letter (below) to the Korean Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council calling for reinstatement of the removed protections for LGBT students.
The letter states:
“By singling out sexual orientation and gender identity for exclusion, the Education Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council and the Seoul Metropolitan Council would contravene international human rights standards and state obligations that South Korea has agreed to uphold. These include rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
A Young Activist Perspective on Global LGBT Rights
December 16, 2011| Contributed by Brian Tofte-Schumacher, Digital Communications Manager, IGLHRC
This post originally appeared on The Bilerico Project. Brian Tofte-Schumacher is Communications Associate at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. He tweets on @IGLHRC and personally as @briantschu. A year and a half ago, when I said my teary-eyed goodbye to my mom after dropping two suitcases packed with all my essential belongings at the check-in counter for my one-way flight to New York City from Spokane International Airport, I had no idea I would soon be writing about my first experience at the United Nations -- especially not this soon. Nonetheless, here I am, ready for it or not. Saturday, December 10 marked the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, following a truly historic week. First came President Obama's memorandum on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights and US Foreign Policy issued by the White House. Then, we heard an amazingly LGBT-affirming speech from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday.
Trans Day of Remembrance: Advancing the Human Rights of Trans People across the Globe
November 18, 2011| Contributed by Cary Alan Johnson, Former Executive Director, IGLHRC
“The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) today honors the memory of the many trans men and women whom we have lost across the globe. From Latin America, to the Middle East, from Africa to Asia discrimination, ignorance, transphobia and violence have unduly taken the lives of innocent trans men and women who sought to live with dignity and respect. In remembering their lives and their sacrifice, we also honor the courageous work activists and allies around the world do each day to advance the human rights of all trans people.”
Trans Day of Remembrance: Focus on Africa
November 18, 2011| Contributed by IGLHRC
Africa Regional Trans Health and Advocacy Conference November 26th to 28th, Capetown, South Africa
In South Africa, IGLHRC has partnered with Gender DynamiX, the first African organization solely for the transgender community. In 2008, IGLHRC and Gender DynamiX together held a Strategy Workshop for transgender activists, the first of its kind on the continent. Held in Cape Town, South Africa, the historic workshop brought together 15 activists from 9 East and Southern African countries—Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—to address the very specific needs of transgender people on the African continent. It marked a key step in the process of defining and building the African transgender movement by African transgender people.
Trans Day of Remembrance: Focus on Turkey
November 18, 2011| Contributed by IGLHRC
“While we remember and mourn the loss of Turkish trans women whose lives were brutally taken from us this year, we must recognize too, the courage of the activists who tirelessly work to advance the human rights of trans people in the Middle East."
Hossein Alizdeh, IGLHRC Coordinator Middle East and North Africa Program
During the past twelve months, the Turkish trans community has continued to be the target of fatal hate crimes. On April 19, a 36-year-old trans woman identified as R.B. was shot in Izmir, Turkey. She was rushed to the hospital, but she passed away before reaching the hospital. Two other trans women were injured during the shootout. On July 31, Didem, a trans woman, was brutally murdered in Istanbul, Turkey's most populated city. The assailants cut the throat of this 21-year-old trans woman. On October 6, a woman was shot to death in Gaziantep, one of the southern cities of Turkey.
Trans Day of Remembrance: Focus on Indonesia
November 18, 2011| Contributed by
“The killings of transgender people, involving Indonesian law enforcement are poorly or never investigated. More often they are put into the freezer by the state, and left unresolved.”
Grace Poore, IGLHRC, Regional Coordinator, Asia and Pacific Islands
Indonesian waria (transgender) activist Elly Susana was killed in 2007. To date, there has been no justice for her. Elly Susana’s story is told in Courage Unfolds, a video produced by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission to reveal the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBT people in Asia and their efforts to fight for equality, safety and decriminalization. Elly Susana’s death, which occurred during an alleged raid by public order officers (Saptol PP), was widely covered by media.
Trans Day of Remembrance: Focus on Latin America
November 18, 2011| Contributed by IGLHRC
In recent years there has been a growing campaign to recognize the citizenship of trans people in Latin America. Red Latinamericana y del Caribe de Personas Trans (REDLACTRANS), a regional network of trans activists from Latin America and the Caribbean, is one of the leaders of this effort. IGLHRC, with an office and regional director located in Argentina, works closely with REDLACTRANS. Over the past year, activists from the region organized with a diverse set of issues and actions including job training initiatives, establishment of work cooperatives and, above all, campaigning for legal recognition of gender identity. Through REDLACTRANS member organizations, this work spread in the region to Argentina, Bolivia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Uruguay. In Argentina, a bill for the recognition of gender identity is currently being debated in Congress.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) together with REDLACTRANS and Heartland Alliance was able to support all these regional advocacy initiatives at the Organization of the American States (OAS). Last June these organizations held a meeting in San Salvador with trans representatives from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama with the purpose of evaluating advocacy for the legal recognition of gender identity in the region.
Learn more about our advocacy at the Organization of American States and for an update about or work on trans issues in Africa, Indonesia and Turkey.
Larry Misedah, Kenyan Gay Rights Activist, Tells His Story
November 17, 2011| Contributed by IGLHRC
Larry Misedah and Cary Alan Johnson traveled to San Francisco to attend a reception hosted by our friend John Newmeyer. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect IGLHRC friends old and new. While they were in the area, Larry and Cary were interviewed by the Bay Area Reporter, Salon.com, and the radio show Out in the Bay. Larry Misedah is a Kenyan gay rights activist who began his work as a human rights defender in 2004 when he joined Ishtar MSM, one of the Kenya’s first organizations to provide health services to men who have sex with men (MSM). In 2007, Larry came out publicly at the World Social Forum in Nairobi and became the spokesperson for Sexual Minorities Uganda’s (SMUG) first media campaign. After becoming a visible leader in the East African gay community, Larry was banished from his family. Then a student at Kenyatta University, his academic future was threatened when his family refused to continue paying his tuition. Threats of violence on the campus became unbearable. Larry was forced to flee Kenya for eight months.
LGBT Rights at APF Biennial Conference
October 11, 2011| Contributed by Grace Poore, Regional Program Coordinator for Asia, IGLHRC
The Asia Pacific Forum (APF) is the first regional body in the world to lobby National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) to integrate the Yogyakarta Principles into their human rights work. It currently has 18 full member institutions from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Australia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, New Zealand, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Thailand and Timor Leste. Maldives and Sri Lanka currently have associate member status for failing to comply with the Paris Principles.1
In May 5-7 2009, the APF invited IGLHRC and several other international human rights experts2 to Yogyakarta, Indonesia for a historic workshop to consider what actions might be taken by NHRIs in Asia to prevent violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). My presentation provided an overview on the impact of criminalization and discrimination on LGBT people's lives in the API region. As part of this presentation, I offered the following recommendations from IGLRHC to the APF:3
Observaciones y significados del primer caso específicamente LGBT que llega a la corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: Karen Atala e Hijas contra el estado de Chile
August 23, 2011| Contributed by Jessica Stern, Executive Director
Escribo esto desde un avión que me lleva a Bogotá, Colombia, en la misma semana en que muchas de mis amigas están de vacaciones y en que me tocaba recorrer 161 km en mi bicicleta, desde el caluroso Brooklyn, Nueva York, donde vivo hasta las ventiladas playas al este de Long Island, como parte de una pandilla lésbica. Sin embargo, cancelé unas vacaciones que hubieran sido perfectas por una mujer a la que no conozco personalmente: Karen Atala.
Voy camino a una audiencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos sobre el caso Karen Atala e hijas contra el estado de Chile. Si el nombre de la señora Atala les resulta conocido es porque probablemente ya lo escucharon antes. La señora Atala es una madre lesbiana y una jueza chilena que perdió la tenencia de sus tres hijas — que en ese entonces tenían 5, 6 y 10 años de edad — en 2003 y su caso fue muy difundido. Después del divorcio, el ex marido de la señora Atala llevó ante la justicia la cuestión de la tenencia, y la señora Atala perdió. Haciendo referencia a la sexualidad de la señora Atala, la Corte Suprema de Chile emitió un veredicto homofóbico, sin muchas vueltas: consideró que las hijas de la señora Atala estaban en “situación de riesgo”, lo que las colocaba en una “posición de vulnerabilidad en su entorno social, dado que claramente su ambiente familiar único difiere en forma significativa del de sus compañeros de escuela y conocidos en el vecindario en el que viven, exponiéndolas al aislamiento y la discriminación, lo que también afectará su desarrollo personal”.
Observations and Meanings from the First-Ever LGBT-Specific Case Heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Karen Atala and Daughters Against the State of Chile
August 23, 2011| Contributed by Jessica Stern, Executive Director
I am writing this from a flight to Bogotá, Colombia on the week many of my friends are on vacation, the week I was supposed to ride my bicycle 100 miles as part of a lesbian gang out of my hot hometown of Brooklyn, New York to the breezy beaches of eastern Long Island. And yet, I cancelled what would have been my perfect vacation because of a woman I’ve never even met: Karen Atala. I am en route to a hearing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the case of Karen Atala and Daughters Against the State of Chile. If Ms. Atala’s name seems familiar, that’s probably because you’ve heard it before. Ms. Atala is a lesbian mother and Chilean judge who lost custody of her three daughters — then ages 5, 6, and 10 years old — in a widely publicized case in 2003. Subsequent to their divorce, Ms. Atala’s ex-husband sued for custody, and Ms. Atala lost. In reference to Ms. Atala’s sexuality, the Supreme Court of Chile issued a homophobic verdict, plain and simple; it deemed Ms. Atala’s daughters to be in a “situation of risk” that placed them in a “vulnerable position in their social environment, since clearly their unique family environment differs significantly from that of their school companions and acquaintances in the neighborhood where they live, exposing them to ostracism and discrimination, which would also affect their personal development.”
Natasha Jiménez y su experiencia al llamar la atención de la ONU sobre la homofobia y la transfobia
July 28, 2011| Contributed by Natasha Jiménez, Mulabi
Las activistas de Costa Rica se reunieron con la integrante cubana del Comité de la CEDAW, Magalys Arrocha, para hablar con ella un poco más sobre la homofobia y la transfobia, con la esperanza de animarla a que apoyen sus contribuciones en las recomendaciones de la CEDAW para el gobierno de Costa Rica. Hay una gran posibilidad de incluir algunos de nuestros temas en las recomendaciones.
Durante la mañana y la tarde, la delegación oficial del gobierno de Zambia presentó su informe y respondió a las preguntas de los miembros del Comité de la CEDAW. En estas sesiones se incluyeron varios intercambios interesantes. En primer lugar, los miembros del Comité hicieron preguntas al Gobierno sobre la falta de mecanismos para defender los derechos de las mujeres en Zambia. La Delegación del Gobierno respondió que eso se debe a los bajos niveles de alfabetización y la poca cantidad de angloparlantes en Zambia. El Comité también preguntó acerca de prácticas culturales que pueden ser consideradas discriminatorias contra las mujeres, las delegadas dijeron que están capacitando a las personas jóvenes y utilizando las radios comunitarias como mecanismo para aumentar la concienciación y la educación. El Gobierno también afirmó que se está trabajando con los medios de comunicación para cambiar los puntos de vista de la población en Zambia.
Natasha Jiménez on Her Experience Spreading Awareness of Homophobia and Transphobia at the UN
July 28, 2011| Contributed by Natasha Jiménez, Mulabi
The activists from Costa Rica met with the CEDAW Committee Member from Cuba, Magalys Arrocha, to talk to her a little more about homophobia and transphobia with the hope of encouraging her to support us in her contributions to the CEDAW recommendations to the government of Costa Rica. There’s a very good possibility of including some of our themes in her recommendations.
Over the morning and afternoon, the official delegation of the government of Zambia presented their report and answered questions from the CEDAW Committee Members. These sessions included several interesting exchanges. First, the Committee Members asked the government questions about the lack of mechanisms to defend women’s rights in Zambia. The government delegation responded that it is because of low literacy and few English speakers in Zambia. The Committee also asked about cultural practices that may be considered discriminatory against women, the delegates said that they are educating the youth and using community radio as a mechanism to raise awareness and education. The government also claimed that it is working with the media to change the views of the Zambian people.
Amazing Responses by CEDAW to Address LGBT Discrimination in Singapore
July 27, 2011| Contributed by Grace Poore, Regional Program Coordinator for Asia, IGLHRC
The purpose of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which is monitored by a Committee, is to codify international legal standards for women’s rights. To date, 186 countries have ratified CEDAW. Twice a year in Geneva and once a year in New York, a committee of 23 independent experts meets to hear how governments are implementing the convention to ensure equality for women. To supplement the information they receive from the state, the CEDAW Committee also reviews reports from NGOs (called shadow reports) to get a truer picture of women’s lives and what the state is doing to advance women’s equality.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) assists NGOs to develop shadow reports, sponsors activist travel so they can present their issues directly to the CEDAW Committee, and assists groups to prepare oral statements that the CEDAW Committee hears during informal meetings and briefings with NGOs.
MALAWI: 18 protestors killed by security forces, IGLHRC joins human rights organizations' call for investigation
July 22, 2011| Contributed by IGLHRC
Read the letter to Malawi President Mutharika