Human Rights are an integral part of what we Latin Americans consider to be our contributions to the world. The American Declaration on the Rights of Man was born in 1948, several months before the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

The Human Rights framework is used to stand up to military dictatorships, to economic plans that bring death and humiliation to millions of people, and to the violence and discrimination faced by LGBT people in Latin America.

IGLHRC plays a central role in defending the Human Rights of LGBT people in Latin America. When a trans, or gay, or lesbian person is murdered in Latin America we are there, launching action alerts to alert the global community and helping activists to report those violations to relevant UN and Interamerican bodies. But we are also there when LGBT communities draft innovative law proposals, like the anti-discriminatory law that was recently passed in Mexico that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and also on gender expression.

We are there when trans people living in the streets of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, need the tools to fight the police that are beating and raping them every day.

We are there when a lesbian judge who is fighting for custody of her children at a Chilean Court needs legal precedents from all over the world to support her case, and a friendly voice on the phone to tell her that she is not alone.

More then ever we need you all to be there with us as well. What happens in Latin America, and elsewhere in the world, is deeply related to what is happening here in the USA. We need your voices, your resistance, and your courage. We need your commitment. We need you to protest with us, to celebrate with us, to learn more about us. Because we all share the dream of a world where every single human being can enjoy the dignity and the freedom that are integral to our commonn humanity.

Often the work IGLHRC does puts us in touch with the worst part of human nature: with murder, hatred, intolerance, abuse. But it also allows us the privilege to meet those who dare to think that this world can be a better place, and act on it. It gives us the opportunity to discover, in ourselves and in one another, elements of courage, compassion, creativity and change. What give substance to the work we do every day are the belief and the real experience of change: change can happen and we can be part of what makes it happen. Tonight I have the privilege to introduce you to somebody who embodies that belief and that reality in a unique way. Travesti activist Lohana Berkins, from Argentina, has made change happen at the local level in several ways, from bringing feminist and trans activists together to discuss gender and how it impacts the lives of us all, to fighting for Peruvian undocumented trans women to stop being harassed by the Argentinean police. She has also made change happen at the regional level by helping trans women to organize themselves in Paraguay and Bolivia. And she has made change happen at the international level by speaking about trans issues to social justice activists from all over the world at the World Social Forum in Brazil last year, and to UN Human Rights Commission officials in Geneva. I am proud and honored to introduce you to our Felipa de Souza 2003 awardee, Lohana Berkins.