Credit: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Jun 1 2023 (IPS)

Turkey’s election hasn’t produced the change many thought was on the cards. Now women’s groups, LGBTQI+ people and independent journalists are among those fearing the worse.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led the country for two decades, first as prime minister and then as president, prevailed in the 28 May runoff poll, taking around 52.2 per cent of the vote, with his opponent, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, on 47.8 per cent.

The election represented Erdoğan’s biggest-ever electoral test. The run-up was dominated by a cost-of-living crisis. Many pointed the finger at highly unorthodox economic policies insisted on by Erdoğan – of lowering rather than raising interest rates in response to inflation – for making them worse off.

Anger was also sparked by devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria in February, leaving over 50,000 people dead and an estimated 1.5 million people homeless in Turkey. The government was accused of being slow to respond and of overlooking building regulations.

Erdoğan has overcome these hurdles, albeit with a narrow victory. The close vote shows that many Turks wanted change. But after a deeply polarised election, there’s no hint Erdoğan plans to moderate the way he governs.

 
Media dominance tells

Erdoğan prevailed despite facing a united opposition in which six parties put aside their differences. Their aim was to bring to an end Erdoğan’s hyper-presidential form of government and turn Turkey back into a pluralist democracy where parliament can act as a check on excessive presidential power.

A similar approach was tried in Hungary last year, when parties came together to try to oust authoritarian hardman Viktor Orbán, and also failed. Some of their challenges were similar. Both were forced to work in a severely unequal media landscape where media – state media and private media owned by business leaders closely connected to the government – focused almost entirely on the incumbent and starved the challenger of airtime. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers concluded that while the election was competitive, the playing field wasn’t level, with freedom of expression restrictions and media bias giving Erdoğan ‘an unjustified advantage’.

Over his 20 years, Erdoğan has concentrated power on himself and moved to suppress dissent. In 2017, Erdoğan pushed through changes that turned a parliamentary system into an intensely presidential one, placing virtually unlimited powers in his hands.

And he’s used those powers. Turkey is now the world’s fourth-largest jailer of journalists, with terrorism charges commonly applied, and the number of trials and length of sentences increasing.

The deteriorating climate for dissent could be seen in the wake of the earthquakes, when people were detained for criticising the government’s response. There were several reports of attacks on and obstruction of journalists during the election campaign.

A race to the bottom

In past elections, Erdoğan campaigned on his economic record. But this time, with the economic crisis and earthquake destruction leaving him unable to press those points, he fell back on another weapon, deploying a tactic nationalists and populists are using the world over: culture war rhetoric.

The opposition was consistently smeared for allegedly supporting LGBTQI+ rights, with Erdoğan positioning himself as the staunch defender of the traditional family. This messaging persisted even though the opposition had little to say on reversing Erdoğan’s attacks on women’s and LGBTQI+ people’s rights.

The culture war strategy was blended with a strongly nationalist appeal. Political opponents were portrayed as extremists and allies of terrorists. This was reinforced by fake campaign videos – one of many examples of campaign disinformation – that claimed to show members of a banned terrorist organisation supporting Kılıçdaroğlu.

Syrian refugees were also targeted. There are 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey. They’ve crossed the border to escape the brutal, 12-year civil war and grotesque human rights abuses. But Turkey’s economic decline has seen growing xenophobia, which has fuelled violence, inflamed by political rhetoric.

Whoever won the election promised to be bad news for refugees. The opposition reacted to Erdoğan’s attacks by pledging to be even tougher in returning refugees. In the last leg of the campaign, both sides hurled discriminatory and inflammatory language at each other.

Erdoğan’s more authentic appeal to nationalism and socially conservative values ultimately won the day. Erdoğan seems to have convinced enough people he’s the only person who can navigate the current crisis. As in several other countries, including Hungary and El Salvador, a majority of voters embraced authoritarianism.

What next?

Undoubtedly Turkey’s heavily restricted civic space and deeply skewed media landscape played a major role. But even acknowledging these barriers, the opposition will need to do some soul searching ahead of municipal elections next year if they hope to keep control of major city governments. The strategy of imitating Erdoğan’s rhetoric on migrants and terrorism having failed, they must find a way to connect with voters with a more positive message.

There are immediate challenges ahead for Erdoğan too, not least the state of the economy. Erdoğan was able to offer some pre-election enticements such as a minimum wage increases and temporary free gas supplies, buttressed by support from non-democratic states including Russia, with which he has developed warmer relations. The government has significantly depleted its foreign currency and gold reserves to try to prop up the Turkish lira – which still hit a record low after Erdoğan’s victory was confirmed.

Erdoğan can be expected to react to further economic difficulty by deepening his authoritarianism to try to silence critics. Those already targeted – refugees, LGBTQI+ people, women, Kurdish activists and the civil society that defends their rights and independent journalists who report their stories – will remain in the firing line.

But the 25.5 million people who voted against Erdoğan deserve a voice. Erdoğan needs to change the habits of a lifetime, show some willingness to listen and build consensus. Turkey’s democratic allies must encourage him to see it’s in his best interest to do so.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Activists from Freedom and Roam Uganda launch LGBTQI+ campaigns, My Body is Not a Battlefield and Break the Chains, Stop Violence campaigns. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
KAMPALA, Apr 21 2023 (IPS)

The mothers of LGBTQ+ individuals in Uganda have taken a stand against Bill passed by the Ugandan Parliament proposing the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality, life imprisonment for the “offense of homosexuality,” and up to 20 years in jail for promoting homosexuality.

This stance is considered rare for Uganda and Africa, where Human Rights Watch says 33 countries still criminalize homosexuality. And there is concern that because of the success of the Ugandan Bill, other African countries could be encouraged to intensify targeting the anti-LGBTQ+ community.

Mawethu Nkosana Nkolomba, the Crisis Response Fund Lead/LGBTI Advocacy Lead at CIVICUS, told IPS that the passing of the Bill in Uganda was not an isolated incident. “There is a threat of LGBTI civil society groups being targeted soon in Kenya, and because of what just happened in Uganda, there are fears of the LGBTI bill coming back in full force. Niger – has a similar bill being tabled.” 

“So is Tanzania – the targeting of LGBTI and feminist groups are under target (anal testing), Ghana – has a similar bill as Uganda, Burundi – (is experiencing) a new wave of arrests of LGBTI groups, the situation of LGBTI groups in Tunisia and Algeria is worsening, in Egypt, police are using queer apps to target the LGBTI community – so definitely there is a trend,” Nkolomba says in an interview with IPS.

Activist Eric Ndaula says the issue is that homophobia is a pervasive mindset – with politicians, religious leaders, and even family taking a stance against it. “They tell us that homosexuality is wrong; it’s an abomination.”

When the Ugandan Parliament passed the Bill on March 21, 2023, without asking for anonymity, Jane Nasimbwa, Sylvia Nassuna, Janet Ndagire, Patricia Naava, Jackie Nabbosa Mpungu, Florence Matovu Kansanze, Josephine Amonyatta, and Shamim Nakamate openly identified themselves as mothers of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Their “Open Letter to President Museveni from Mothers of LGBTQ+ Individuals,” – republished by the Monitor, surprised many.

“As parents of LGBTQ+ individuals, we are not ‘promoters’ of any agenda; we are Ugandan mothers, who have had to overcome many of our own biases to fully understand, accept, and love our children,” reads the letter.

The women expressed fear that their children were likely to be targets of mob violence, which they noted was a direct consequence of living in a country whose legislators are “recklessly” legalizing homophobia and transphobia with the Anti-Homosexuality law.

“We, too, did not choose to be parents of LGBTQ+ children, but we have chosen to love our children for who they are. As parents, we all desire and work to ensure that our children are healthy, well-educated, successful, and fulfilled in both their professional and personal lives.”

The letter was shared on Twitter by Dr Catherine Kyobutungi, a feminist and The Executive Director of the African Population and Health Research Center, sparking an online debate.

They requested President Yoweri Museveni not to assent to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, saying they could no longer stand on the sidelines and watch as their children continued to be bashed and threatened in such a dangerous and deliberate manner.

Will President Museveni Listen?

There are doubts about whether Museveni, who previously signed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law in 2014, will heed the mothers’ call – even though he has sent the Bill back to parliament for amendment.

In a press statement released on April 20, 2023, which quoted him as saying: “Be ready to sacrifice to fight homosexuals,” he also noted: “It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists. Those imperialists have been messing up the world for 600 years, causing so much damage.”

The Bill is to be returned not because of a change in sentiment but because Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka said the Bill in its current form criminalizes even those who voluntarily come out to having “practiced homosexuality” and need to be helped.

He proposed a provision for amnesty for this group.

Museveni has been quoted several times that those behind the criticism of the Bill were associated with Europeans – and he has expressed anti-homosexuality sentiments in several other addresses since then.

“There is some issue with these Europeans. They don’t listen; we have been telling them that this problem of homosexuality is not something that we should normalize and celebrate,” Museveni said. “I told them that there were some few homosexuals before Europeans came here … But now the Europeans want to turn the abnormal into normal and force it on others.”

After the Bill was enacted, Museveni addressed a meeting of members of Parliament from 22 African countries and the UK. He repeated that homosexuality was a deviation, adding that it was more dangerous than drugs.

In February 2014, President Museveni appointed a committee of scientists to determine whether there was a scientific or genetic basis for homosexuality and whether it could be learned and unlearned.

While the committee recommended a further study, it observed that homosexuality existed throughout history.

‘Blatant Violation of Rights’

Dr Zahara Nampewo, a lecturer at the Makerere University’s School of Law and Director of the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), speaking at a debate a day after the Bill was passed, said there were far-reaching implications of the law.

“We have raised our voices of concern over issues such as the blatant violation of rights such as the presumption of innocence, the right to a non-derogable right to a fair trial,” Nampewo says. “We have been calling for laws to protect children against child abuse; we have been calling for the marriage bill. Why now, in a period of a month, has (this) law been passed?”

The mover of the Bill, Asuman Basalirwa, told IPS that they had planned to table the Bill since August 2022, but it was only in late February that the Speaker granted them space on the order paper.

“The issue of recruitment, promotion, and financing of homosexuality. You don’t provoke a community like that. If those people were doing their things quietly, nobody would be bothered, but you see, you are going into our schools, you are attacking our children. And you want us to look on?”

Asked why a particular stance to criminalize LGBTQ+ persons, Basalirwa told IPS that the criminalization of homosexuality is not a new phenomenon. “It is the colonialists who first brought here a law on homosexuality section 145 of the penal code. This is intended to be a penal law. So you want a penal law that doesn’t criminalize it,” he asked.

Timing of Passing the Bill

Some critics have argued that the Bill was rushed by Speaker of Parliament Anita Among and her deputy Thomas Tayebwa because those behind it wanted it to be passed before an Inter-Parliamentary Conference on family values under the theme “Protecting African Culture and Family Values.”

The two-day conference was held on the shores of Lake Victoria from March 31 to April 1, 2023. It was attended by leaders of Family Watch International (FWI) officials. FWI is a US Christian organization described by civil rights activists as a “hate group, which opposes comprehensive sexuality education.” Delegates from FWI included Sharon Slater, who told the conference that: “We are on fire, and we must stop this culture of imperialism that is destroying our children.” Slater and her team, which included Henk Jan van Schothorst, the Executive Director at Christian Council International, and Gregg Scot, a US attorney, met Museveni and his wife, Janet Museveni, at State House Entebbe.

‘Victimless Offense’ 

But Dr Adrian Jjuuko, Executive Director at Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum – Uganda (HRAPF), disagrees with Basalirwa about the timing of the enactment of the Bill.

“This is a campaign that has been going on for years. And it is not just a Ugandan campaign. This is an international campaign,” said Jjuuko, whose organization provides legal aid to LGBTQI+ persons.

Jjuuko, whose organization has allegedly been listed by Uganda’s NGO Bureau among Civil Society groups likely to be closed, told IPS that the offenses suggested in the laws are victimless because the relationships were consensual. “If you have a victimless offense, why do you have to criminalize a victimless offense? Nobody is complaining; there’s no harm. Harm to who? To Hon Basalirwa?”

The Bill limits the offense of homosexuality to sexual acts between persons of the same sex. The offense is punishable by life imprisonment, up to ten years. It also provides for the offense of aggravated homosexuality.

“If you look at the provision on the promotion of homosexuality. It essentially bans what we do as lawyers. So as a lawyer, you cannot represent an LGBTQ+ person because that will be seen as a promotion of homosexuality,” Jjuuko says.

The law suggests several punishments, including the death penalty for being a repeat offender and life imprisonment.

“Repeat offender means if you are convicted of being gay twice, you die for that. Having consensual sex when you are HIV-positive, you die for that; if you have sex with a person of the advanced age of 75 years, you die for that regardless of whether it is consensual.”

Jjuuko observes, “If you wanted to fight pedophilia, sexual orientation is not what you go for. What you go for is the crime that you are interested in fighting.”

NGOs suspected of promoting homosexuality risk a fine of one billion shillings (over $264,000) or face twenty years in prison.

Restrictions, threats, and the vilification of sexual minorities in Uganda preceded the passing of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill. In August 2022, the civil society organization Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) was banned by the Ugandan National Bureau (the NGO Bureau for Non-Governmental Organizations) because it was not registered. In 2012 the NGO Bureau rejected an application by SMUG to have it registered because the organization was “undesirable and un-registrable.”

Asuman Basalirwa, the mover of the Bill, and fellow Parliamentarians argued that the country needs the law to protect children from promoters of homosexuality. But Jjuuko, in an interview with IPS, said that it was a misplaced sentiment.

“If you talk about children, the biggest threat to our children is not homosexuality. The biggest threat to children is heterosexuality. Because if you look at the annual police crimes report, over ten thousand cases of defilement of girls by men. And there were only 83 cases of unnatural carnal knowledge (as the offense is described in the bill) against the order of nature.”

The Bill is Retrogressive

Many have observed that the Bill is retrogressive and will worsen the HIV situation in Uganda as it would deny LGBTIQ+ persons, who are key populations, access to HIV services.

The Bill came after PEPFER Uganda, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Uganda, the Uganda AIDS Commission, conducted a legal and environmental assessment of HIV/AIDS and key populations. The evaluation had recommendations to ensure an enabling environment to move the course toward epidemic control.

PEPFAR Uganda Country Coordinator, Mary Borgman, told IPS, “We need to ensure that the human rights of all key populations are respected regardless of who we are. And this is our primary objective to ensure that we provide services to all people. That is stigma and discrimination-free.”

While South Africa’s Constitution is hailed for being the first in the world to prohibit unfair discrimination based on sexual orientation, LGBTQ+ people still experience violence. Human Rights Watch noted that in 2021 at least 24 people were murdered due to their sexual orientation.

More concerning is the decision of an independent expert body within the African Union (AU), the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, to reject the three NGOs’ observer status to three NGOs.

Frans Viljoen, Director and Professor of International Human Rights Law, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, argues in the Conversation that the rejection of Alternative Côte d’Ivoire, Human Rights First Rwanda and Synergía “casts a shadow over the commission’s commitment to advancing the rights of all Africans. It also seriously erodes its independence from AU states … The denial of observer status means the NGOs will not have a voice before the African Commission. They will not be able to draw its attention to the human rights violations of LGBTQ+ people in Africa.”

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Currently, there are four African countries that operate capital punishment for being gay. These are Mauritania, Niger, Somalia and South Sudan. Credit: Dai Kurokawa/EPA

By Stephanie Musho
NAIROBI, Apr 14 2023 (IPS)

Imagine your government enacted a law where you and all people of your race or economic status were imprisoned for extended periods, with some facing the death penalty, simply for existing. In Uganda, sexual and gender minorities are facing this possibility should President Yoweri Museveni sign into law a recently passed Anti-Homosexuality Bill that discriminates against people based on their sexual orientation.

This comes almost a decade after a similar law dubbed ‘Kill the Gays’, was repealed on procedural grounds. For years, the issue of LGBTQ+ rights in the country has been a game of psychological and emotional ping-pong where every so often the worst fears come close to becoming a reality with the enactment and repeal of these laws. Consider the renewed anguish that members of the LGBTQ+ community now face with the alarming possibilities that this draconian Bill seeks to make law.

Uganda, Ghana and Kenya all have obligations under international human rights law. These are legally binding and not merely suggestive. By allowing the progression of these anti-LGBTQ+ laws, these governments will have violated the human rights of their own people

Under this legislative proposal, homosexual ‘conduct’ by adults is not recognized as consensual. This would essentially categorize LGBTQ+ persons with sex offenders including rapists. Additionally, persons who simply identify as LGBTQ+ would face a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. The Bill also seeks, among other things, to punish the ‘promotion of homosexuality’ – that extends to family members and allies including the staff of human rights organizations.

The Bill seeks to introduce the offence of ‘aggravated homosexuality’ where offenders would be subjected to mandatory HIV testing to ascertain the status of the offender. If found to be HIV positive or is a serial offender, could face the death penalty. Not only is this discrimination on sexual orientation, but discrimination based on health status. This is illegal, immoral and unethical.

Despite the last execution happening in 2005, Uganda still maintains the laws and structures to carry out execution orders. Currently, there are four African countries that operate capital punishment for being gay. These are Mauritania, Niger, Somalia and South Sudan.

These homophobic ideologies have also gained traction in West Africa, where Ghana’s parliament is also considering an anti-gay proposed law officially known as the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill, 2021. If passed, LGBTQ+ persons face between three to five years imprisonment.

Marrying a person that has had gender reassignment surgery would be outlawed and so would cross-dressing. The government could also force ‘’corrective surgery’’ for intersex persons. Additionally, advocates and allies of the LGBTQ+ community could face jail time for offering their support and protection to sexual and gender minorities.

Since the introduction of these Bills, the LGBTQ+ community and allies in Uganda and Ghana have been the subject of numerous hate crimes including harassment and intimidation, arbitrary arrests and assaults. Just recently, a senior ranking government official in Uganda declared that gay people should not be treated in state-owned public health facilities.

In Kenya, a Member of Parliament, Peter Kaluma, has recently submitted to the Speaker of the National Assembly an anti-homosexuality proposed law through the Family Protection Bill. The homophobic Bill has similarities with the ones in Uganda and Ghana. It criminalizes homosexuality and its promotion.

Additionally, the Bill seeks to limit the rights to assembly, demonstration, association, expression, belief, privacy, and employment in child care institutions in respect of homosexuality convicts and those engaged in LGBTQ behavior. If the Bill goes through, LGBTQ+ persons in Kenya will also be unable to adopt children and found families. Worth noting is that the Bill also seeks to ban sexual health & rights, and sexual education.

This came shortly after the Supreme Court in Constitutional Petition 16 of 2019 ruled that the government’s refusal to register an organization of persons within the LGBTQI+ community amounts to violation of the freedom of association and freedom from discrimination. Mr. Kaluma compares the natural act of two consenting adults deciding to love each other, ‘a vice that will destroy the society’. He even likened it to bestiality. Other leaders have been vocal against LGBTQ+ rights including the President – William Ruto, who is heavily influenced by religion.

This opposition extends to the wider ambit of sexual and reproductive health rights. Here there is a coordinated attack on bodily autonomy and choice, driven majorly by foreign organizations. There also remains steadfast opposition within the gender and reproductive justice movement, particularly in Kenya.

It is a fallacy to claim to be an organization working on sexual and reproductive health and/or rights but draw the line at access to contraceptives and comprehensive sexuality education for adolescents; or at access to safe abortion. Similarly, it is logically impossible to be a human rights organization but take issue with LGBTQ+ rights. The underpinning principles and values of human rights stipulate that they are interdependent. The absence of one right negates the fulfillment of another.

Uganda, Ghana and Kenya all have obligations under international human rights law. These are legally binding and not merely suggestive. By allowing the progression of these anti-LGBTQ+ laws, these governments will have violated the human rights of their own people. These include freedom from torture and cruel punishment, freedom from discrimination, freedom of expression, the right to privacy and all other rights that pertain to the security of person.

One might argue that the homophobic wave in Africa is quickly spreading because LGBTQ+ rights are un-African. The opposite is true. In pre-colonial Uganda, the King of the Buganda Kingdom, Kabaka Mwanga II, was an openly bisexual man. He did not face any resistance until the advent of the white Christian missionaries.

Many other African cultures had women husbands where same-sex marriage was allowed. There are 19 African countries where homosexuality is legal. Does it then mean that these countries are less African than the rest? The criminalization of gay rights in Africa is in fact another detrimental product of colonialism on the continent.

Additionally, religious dogma is often advanced to curtail human rights. Despite whichever faith we subscribe to, none is underpinned on hate and intolerance. It is therefore ironic that the proponents of such like legislative proposals are seeking to legalize targeted violence and killings on people not because they have done harm, but merely because they are different.

Regional and international human rights mechanisms must therefore be ready and willing to hold these three African states accountable to their international legal obligations should the proposed homophobic laws pass in the respective jurisdictions.

Member states of the United Nations and other multilateral organizations must follow through with sanctions that are targeted at government officials including the legislators that introduce the inhumane Bills. African states must no longer hide under the principle of sovereignty to claw back on human rights in justifying the mistreatment and deaths of human beings.

Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and a Senior Fellow with the Aspen Institute’s New Voices Fellowship.

LGBTIQ+ activists in Caracas protest outside the National Electoral Council, in charge of the civil registry, demanding enforcement of the legal statute that authorizes a change of name for trans, intersex or non-binary people. The agency has delayed compliance with the law for years. CREDIT: Observatory of Violence

By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Mar 30 2023 (IPS)

The vulnerability and struggles of the LGBTIQ+ community in Venezuela were once again highlighted when the Supreme Court finally annulled the military code statute that punished, with one to three years in prison, members of the military who committed ” acts against nature.”

The Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court ruled that the statute, in force since the last century, “is contrary to the fundamental postulate of progressivity in terms of guaranteeing human rights,” and also “lacks sufficient legal clarity and precision with regard to the conduct it was intended to punish.”

The statute, in the Code of Military Justice, was the only one that still punished homosexuality with jail in Venezuela, and it was overturned on Feb. 16."In Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, health and housing.” -- Tamara Adrián

However, “in Venezuela LGBTIQ+ people (lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, intersex, queers and others) must still fight for the right to identity, to equal marriage, to non-discrimination in education, healthcare and housing,” transgender activist Tamara Adrián told IPS.

Even the procedure followed to overturn the statute, the second paragraph of article 565 of the Military Code, was an illustration of the continued disdain towards the LGBTIQ+ minority.

Activist Richelle Briceño reminded IPS that civil society organizations had been demanding the annulment of the statute for seven years, receiving no response from the Supreme Court.

“All of a sudden, the Ombudsman’s Office (in Venezuela all branches of power are in the hands of the ruling party) asked the court to overturn that part of the article and in less than 24 hours the decision was made, on Feb. 16,” Briceño observed.

In addition, the Ombudsman’s Office argued that the statute was not used in the last 20 years, but Briceño said that around the year 2016 there were several documented cases.

Different NGOs see the legal ruling as linked with the presentation, the following day, of reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council of serious violations on this question in Venezuela, including the non-recognition of the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community.

In the Venezuelan armed forces, homosexual conduct or acts “against nature” were still punishable by prison sentences of one to three years, until the statute was finally overturned by the Supreme Court in February. CREDIT: Mippci

Many pending issues

In Venezuela, “according to current medical protocols, blood donations by people who have sexual relations with people of the same sex are not even accepted,” Natasha Saturno, with the Acción Solidaria NGO, which specializes in health assistance and supplies, told IPS.

“Forty days ago they operated on my son. I brought a dozen blood donors, they were all asked this question, and several were turned away,” she said.

If these restrictions still exist, even further away are the hopes of the LGBTIQ+ community to obtain identity documents that reflect their gender option, to same-sex unions or equal marriage, or to outlaw all forms of discrimination, Saturno said.

Adrián said that “recognizing gender identity or equal marriage with both spouses enjoying the right to exercise maternity or paternity are achievements that are advancing or expanding throughout Latin America, and Venezuela, which has moved forward in civil rights since the 19th century, is now among the laggards.”

The activist, founder in 2022 of the political party United for Dignity, highlighted the progress made on this issue in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay, “with only Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname and Venezuela lagging behind in South America.”

With regard to identity, since 2009 the Civil Registry Law states that “everyone may change their own name, only once, when they are subjected to public ridicule (…) or it does not correspond to their gender, thus affecting the free development of their personality.”

But the rule is not enforced in the case of trans, intersex and non-binary people, with countless procedural obstacles in the way, which is why, frustrated by meaningless paperwork, LGBTIQ+ groups have protested before the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman’s Office and the National Electoral Council, which the civil registry falls under.

Adrián maintained that “we are guided by the opinion of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which in 2017 recognized the right to identity as essential for the development of personality and non-discrimination in areas such as labor, health and education.”

A demonstration by the LGBTIQ+ community outside the Supreme Court in Caracas demanded the right to same-sex marriage, which is legal in many parts of Latin America but remains a distant dream in Venezuela. CREDIT: Acvi

Victims of violence

LGBTIQ+ people in Venezuela “suffer numerous forms of discrimination and violence, from the family sphere to public spaces,” said Yendri Velásquez, of the recently created Venezuelan Observatory of Violence against this community.

It manifests itself “in psychological violence, very present in the family sphere, beatings, denial of identity, access and use of public spaces – from restaurants to parks -, extortion, bullying based on gender expression, employment discrimination and even murder,” Velásquez said.

He pointed out that in 2021 there were 21 murders of people “just for being gay or lesbian,” and that in the second half of 2022 the Observatory recorded 10 “murders or cases of very serious injuries” with a total of 11 gay, lesbian or transgender victims.

The activists are advocating for norms and policies that help eradicate hate crimes and hate speech, as well as online violence, because through social networks they receive messages as serious as “die”, “kill yourself”, “I hope they kill you” or “you shouldn’t be alive.”

The organizations share these fears and are protesting that the legislature, in the hands of the ruling party, is drafting a law that would curtail and severely restrict the independence and work of non-governmental organizations.

Marches for the rights of the LGBTIQ+ community and against discrimination are growing in size in Venezuela, and groups of European residents and diplomats have even joined in on some occasions. CREDIT: EU

Healthcare as well

For the LGBTIQ+ community, healthcare is a critical issue, in the context of a complex humanitarian emergency that, among other effects, has led to the collapse of health services, with most hospitals suffering from infrastructure and maintenance failures, lack of equipment and supplies, and the migration of health professionals.

Adrián said “there are barriers to entry into health centers, both public and private, for people who are trans or intersex, for their stay in hospitals – sometimes they are treated in the corridors – and for adherence to the treatments.”

An additional problem is that hormones have not been available in Venezuela for 10 years, and users who resort to uncontrolled imports are exposing themselves to significant health risks.

The community was greatly affected by the AIDS epidemic, although in 2001 civil society organizations managed to get the Supreme Court to make it obligatory for the government to provide antiretroviral drugs free of charge.

They were available for years, although Saturno points out that the supply became intermittent starting in 2012.

That year marked the start of the current economic and migration crisis suffered by this oil-producing country of 28 million people, with the loss of four-fifths of GDP and the migration of seven million Venezuelans.

Currently, deliveries are made regularly, according to the NGOs dedicated to monitoring the question, although usually with only one of the treatment schemes prescribed by the Pan American Health Organization, “and not everyone can take the same treatment,” Saturno said.

Some 88,000 HIV/AIDS patients are registered in Venezuela’s master plan on HIV/AIDS that the government and United Nations agencies support. But according to NGO projections, there could be as many as 200,000 HIV-positive people in the country.

The activists also note that the climate marked by the denial of identity and rights for individuals and couples, discrimination, harassment, violence and work handicap, plus health issues, push LGBTIQ+ people to form part of the flow of migrants that has spread across the hemisphere.

The State of Civil Society report from CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance which was officially launched on March 30, 2023, exposes the gross violations of civic space. Credit CIVICUS

By Andrew Firmin and Inés M. Pousadela
LONDON / MONTEVIDEO, Mar 29 2023 (IPS)

Brave protests against women’s second-class status in Iran; the mass defence of economic rights in the face of a unilateral presidential decision in France; huge mobilisations to resist government plans to weaken the courts in Israel: all these have shown the willingness of people to take public action to stand up for human rights.

The world has seen a great wave of protests in 2022 and 2023, many of them sparked by soaring costs of living. But these and other actions are being met with a ferocious backlash. Meanwhile multiple conflicts and crises are intensifying threats to human rights.

Vast-scale human rights abuses are being committed in Ukraine, women’s rights are being trampled on in Afghanistan and LGBTQI+ people’s rights are under assault in Uganda, along with several other countries. Military rule is again being normalised in multiple countries, including Mali, Myanmar and Sudan, and democracy undermined by autocratic leaders in El Salvador, India and Tunisia, among others. Even supposedly democratic states such as Australia and the UK are undermining the vital right to protest.

But in the face of this onslaught civil society continues to strive to make a crucial difference to people’s lives. It’s the force behind a wave of breakthroughs on g abortion rights in Latin America, most recently in Colombia, and on LGBTQI+ rights in countries as diverse as Barbados, Mexico and Switzerland. Union organising has gained further momentum in big-brand companies such as Amazon and Starbucks. Progress on financing for the loss and damage caused by climate change came as a result of extensive civil society advocacy.

The latest State of Civil Society Report from CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, presents a global picture of these trends. We’ve engaged with civil society activists and experts from around the world to understand how civil society is responding to conflict and crisis, mobilising for economic justice, defending democracy, advancing women’s and LGBTQI+ rights, calling for climate action and urging global governance reform. These are our key findings.

Civil society is playing a key role in responding to conflicts and humanitarian crises – and facing retaliation

Civil society is vital in conflict and crisis settings, where it provides essential services, helps and advocates for victims, monitors human rights and collects evidence of violations to hold those responsible to account. But for doing this, civil society is coming under attack.

Catastrophic global governance failures highlight the urgency of reform

Too often in the face of the conflicts and crises that have marked the world over the past year, platitudes are all international institutions have had to offer. Multilateral institutions have been left exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s time to take civil society’s proposals to make the United Nations more democratic seriously.

People are mobilising in great numbers in response to economic shock – and exposing deeper problems in the process

As it drove a surge in fuel and food prices, Russia’s war on Ukraine became a key driver of a global cost of living crisis. This triggered protests in at least 133 countries where people demanded economic justice. Civil society is putting forward progressive economic ideas, including on taxation, connecting with other struggles for rights, including for climate, gender, racial and social justice.

The right to protest is under attack – even in longstanding democracies

Many states, unwilling or unable to concede the deeper demands of protests, have responded with violence. The right to protest is under attack all over the world, particularly when people mobilise for economic justice, democracy, human rights and environmental rights. Civil society groups are striving to defend the right to protest.

Democracy is being eroded in multiple ways – including from within by democratically elected leaders

Economic strife and insecurity are providing fertile ground for the emergence of authoritarian leaders and the rise of far-right extremism, as well for the rejection of incumbency. In volatile conditions, civil society is working to resist regression and make the case for inclusive, pluralist and participatory democracy.

Disinformation is skewing public discourse, undermining democracy and fuelling hate

Disinformation is being mobilised, particularly in the context of conflicts, crises and elections, to sow polarisation, normalise extremism and attack rights. Powerful authoritarian states and far-right groups provide major sources, and social media companies are doing nothing to challenge a problem that’s ultimately good for their business model. Civil society needs to forge a joined-up, multifaceted global effort to counter disinformation.

Movements for women’s and LGBTQI+ rights are making gains against the odds

In the face of difficult odds, civil society continues to drive progress on women’s and LGBTQI+ rights. But its breakthroughs are making civil society the target of a ferocious backlash. Civil society is working to resist attempts to reverse gains and build public support to ensure that legal changes are consolidated by shifts in attitudes.

Civil society is the major force behind the push for climate action

Civil society continues to be the force sounding the alarm on the triple threat of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Civil society is urging action using every tactic available, from street protest and direct action to litigation and advocacy in national and global arenas. But the power of the fossil fuel lobby remains undimmed and restrictions on climate protests are burgeoning. Civil society is striving to find new ways to communicate the urgent need for action.

Civil society is reinventing itself to adapt to a changing world

In the context of pressures on civic space and huge global challenges, civil society is growing, diversifying and widening its repertoire of tactics. Much of civil society’s radical energy is coming from small, informal groups, often formed and led by women, young people and Indigenous people. There is a need to support and nurture these.

We believe the events of the past year show that civil society – and the space for civil society to act – are needed more than ever. If they really want to tackle the many great problems of the world today, states and the international community need to take some important first steps: they need to protect the space for civil society and commit to working with us rather than against us.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief. Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist. Both are co-directors and writers of CIVICUS Lens and co-authors of the State of Civil Society Report.

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UN-GLOBE marches in the 2019 World Pride parade in celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people everywhere. Credit: UN-GLOBE

By an IPS Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 29 2023 (IPS)

A group of UN experts* on human rights has blasted the Government of Uganda for making homosexuality punishable by death.

“It is an egregious violation of human rights, the experts said, urging Uganda’s president not to promulgate laws that take aim at and further criminalise people identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), and those who support and defend their human rights.

“The imposition of the death penalty based on such legislation is per se an arbitrary killing and a breach of article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR),” the experts said, noting that this advice has been provided on several occasions to the Ugandan State in the past, according to a press release.

The Ugandan parliament recently approved harsh anti-LGBT laws that target and jeopardise the rights of LGBT persons and those who support and defend their human rights. The Ugandan legislation has been criticised as one of the world’s harshest anti-LGBT laws.

“The imposition of the death penalty for same-sex intimacy – including so-called ‘serial homosexuality’ – is an egregious violation of human rights,” the UN experts said.

They warned that the new legislation would exacerbate and legitimise continued stigmatisation, violence, harassment, and discrimination against LGBT persons and impact all spheres of their lives.

“LGBTI persons will constantly live in fear and stress for their life and physical integrity for simply living according to their sexual orientation,” the experts said, highlighting also the mental health-associated risks.

The experts said consistent acts of aggression, intimidation, and harassment and the proposed legislation threatened the physical and mental integrity and health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender diverse persons in Uganda.

“Culture can never be a justification for such flagrant violations of human rights,” the experts said. They recalled the obligation of all stakeholders, including States, civil society and businesses, to promote social inclusion and contribute to stopping human rights abuses.

According to the experts, the Ugandan legislation comes after years of State-instigated and perpetuated discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The experts repeatedly raised serious concerns about escalating risks to the human rights of LGBT persons in Uganda over the past 15 years, including when other iterations of so-called “anti-homosexuality” laws were proposed in 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

In all cases, the draft bills were assessed as potentially leading to immediate violations to a substantial range of human rights, including the rights to life, liberty and security, privacy, equality and non-discrimination, freedom of association, peaceful assembly, opinion, expression, and the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, not to be subject to arbitrary arrest or detention, and the absolute prohibition against torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

“The new law is no exception and forms part of a worrying trend of intolerance, exacerbating stigma against LGBTI persons without any grounds or evidence,” they said.

The experts recalled that every person has the right to live peacefully and free from discrimination and violence. “We urge the President of Uganda to tread a new path towards respect of human rights and acceptance of difference, and reject the proposed law,” they said.

*The group of experts include: Mr. Víctor Madrigal-Borloz, Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Nazila Ghanea, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief; Ms. Margaret Satterthwaite, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Dr Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Ms. Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Ms. Miriam Estrada-Castillo (Chair-Rapporteur), Mr. Mumba Malila (Vice-Chair), Ms. Priya Gopalan, Mr. Matthew Gillett, and Ms. Ganna Yudkivska – Working Group on arbitrary detention; Ms. Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; Dr. Ana Brian Nougrères, Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy; Ms. Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; Mr. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Ms. Pichamon Yeophantong (Chairperson), Mr. Damilola Olawuyi (Vice-Chairperson), Ms. Fernanda Hopenhaym, Ms. Elżbieta Karska, and Mr. Robert McCorquodale of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises; Mr. Gerard Quinn, Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities; Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

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People lay flowers and candles outside the Teplaren LGBTQI bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, following an attack outside the popular a meeting place for members of the city's LGBTQI community in which two people were killed, and a third seriously injured. Credit: Zuzana Thullnerova/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Mar 7 2023 (IPS)

When D.A.* first heard about the fatal attack on a gay bar in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, last October, their first reaction was a mix of grief, shock and anger.

But then, soon after, the university student and member of the country’s LGBTQI community immediately began to worry.

“I was scared for my own safety,” D.A. told IPS.

Even now, months later, that fear remains in the community.

“I know people who have told me they are afraid to go out at night or who won’t go out on their own and stick together in a group instead. I’m the same,” they said.

The attack on the Teplaren bar, which was carried out by a teenage far-right sympathiser, left two dead and a third, who later recovered, seriously injured. It shocked many and sparked debate about attitudes towards LGBTQI people in the conservative, predominantly Catholic country.

But it also highlighted the threat of extreme violence faced by members of the LGBTQI community not just in Slovakia, but across Europe, coming just months after an attack on a gay bar in Oslo, Norway, which killed two and injured a further 21 people.

And groups working with LGBTQI communities across Europe say that violence is becoming increasingly planned and deadly, leaving many feeling unsafe in countries across Europe.

A report by the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe) released in February showed that 2022 was the most violent year for LGBTQI people across the region in the past decade, both through planned, ferocious attacks and through suicides.

It said this violence came in the wake of rising and widespread hate speech from politicians, religious leaders, right-wing organisations and media pundits.

“We have noticed a rise in hate speech for some time now and have been flagging it up for a number of years. But what we have been surprised by is the sheer ferocity and violence of the hate, and the physical attacks against LGBTQI people,” Katrin Hugendubel, Advocacy Director at ILGA, told IPS.

ILGA’s report shows that problems with hate speech – be it online, or publicly from politicians, state representatives, or religious leaders – against LGBTQI people run right across the continent from Armenia and Austria to Serbia, Sweden, Turkey, and Ukraine, with dire consequences for people and communities “not only in countries where hate speech is rife, but also in countries where it is widely believed that LGBTI people are progressively accepted”.

ILGA’s report highlighted hate speech used during debates on transgender laws in Finland’s parliament, while previously Finnish prosecutors have voiced concerns about hate speech fuelling anti-LGBTQI sentiment in society.

And in Slovakia, politicians, including former prime ministers, have publicly denigrated LGBTQI people, talked of homosexuality and transgender people as “perversions” and, in some cases, even called for legislation to limit LGBTQI people’s rights.

D.A., who said they had friends who had been attacked because of their identity, believes this kind of rhetoric, from politicians or anyone else, helps fuel violence against the LGBTQI community.

“People in Slovakia are often and easily influenced by the kind of information they receive on a daily basis. So yes, hateful rhetoric leads to violence,” they said.

In some other countries, politicians have taken things even further, enacting legislation which effectively prevents any positive public portrayal of the LGBTI community.

At the end of last year, a new law banning LGBTQI ‘propaganda’ was passed in Russia banning any promotion of what authorities see as “non-traditional sexual relations”.
Groups working with Russia’s LGBTQI community said the new law – an extension of 2013 legislation banning the positive portrayal of same-sex relationships to minors – was the latest part of a state system designed to further stigmatise the minority and was brought in amid intensifying anti-LGBTQI political rhetoric.

Violence against the community has been on the rise in Russia over the last decade, and they worry the new law will only fuel it further.

In Hungary, a similar law was passed in 2021, and experts there say it has emboldened people to express their hatred of the LGBTQI community physically.

“According to statements made by the perpetrators of hate incidents (and from looking at social media) it seems that the law reaffirmed already existing homophobic and transphobic prejudices and made it ‘okay’ to act upon them – people are citing that the law is on their side,” Aron Demeter, Programme Director at Amnesty International in Hungary , told IPS.

“Since the law is purposely confusing (and absurd) it is enough that they have an understanding of that it ‘protects children from LGBTI people’ and that serves as a ‘lawful authorisation’ to be hostile,” added.

While such overtly repressive legislation is not common in other countries in Europe, rights activists point out there are gaps in laws in many states protecting the community.

“In quite a lot of countries, there is still a lack of legislation dealing with hate speech specifically against the LGBTQI community,” Hugendubel pointed out.

She added that this should be addressed, but that it was crucial that people at the highest political levels must speak out against anti-LGBTQI hate.

“We feel that we need to see much more from EU institutions and national leaders in a real effort to stop the hate. There need to be clear statements from them saying that hate is not acceptable,” she said.

Immediately after the attacks in Norway and Slovakia, many politicians, both domestic and in other states, were quick to condemn it and the hatred behind it.

But worries remain that LGBTQI people will continue to be used as a welcome source of polarisation by politicians.

“It is important to see how politicians are using LGBTQI as a polarising tool. It’s something they can use to motivate a specific conservative voter base, and it is a tool with works to a certain extent. It is also being used to distract from other issues, such as corruption – it is polarisation at the expense of the LGBTQI community,” said Hugendubel.

However, while hate speech, and the violence it drives – prior to the killings in Norway, there was a massive rise in anti-LGBTQI hate crimes, jumping from 97 in 2020 to 240 in 2021, according to ILGA – is on the rise in Europe, action is being taken against it with growing numbers of prosecutions for hate speech and crimes in many countries.

Progress is also being made on legislative protections for LGBTQI people.

Meanwhile, despite an intensifying instrumentalization of LGBTQI issues by politicians and others against the community, there is a growing acceptance and support for the community in societies, notably in countries where governments are pursuing strongly anti-LGBTQI policies, such as Poland and Hungary, according to the group.

More needs to be done though, said Hugendubel.

“We are calling on all political leaders to step-up, speak out, and be proactive in fighting hate speech, rather than being reactive when faced with its consequences,” she said.

Note: *D.A.’s name has been withheld for reasons of personal safety.

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By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Feb 24 2023 (IPS)

Over the year since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine, on one side of the border civil society has shown itself to be a vital part of the effort to save lives and protect rights – but on the other, it’s been repressed more ruthlessly than ever.

Ukraine’s civil society is doing things it never imagined it would. An immense voluntary effort has seen people step forward to provide help.

Overnight, relief programmes and online platforms to raise funds and coordinate aid sprang up. Numerous initiatives are evacuating people from occupied areas, rehabilitating wounded civilians and soldiers and repairing damaged buildings. Support Ukraine Now is coordinating support, mobilising a community of activists in Ukraine and abroad and providing information on how to donate, volunteer and help Ukrainian refugees in host countries.

In a war in which truth is a casualty, many responses are trying to offer an accurate picture of the situation. Among these are the 2402 Fund, providing safety equipment and training to journalists so they can report on the war, and the Freefilmers initiative, which has built a solidarity network of independent filmmakers to tell independent stories of the struggle in Ukraine.

Alongside these have come efforts to gather evidence of human rights violations, such as the Ukraine 5am Coalition, bringing together human rights networks to document war crimes and crimes against humanity, and OSINT for Ukraine, where students and other young people collect evidence of atrocities.

The hope is to one day hold Putin and his circle to account for their crimes. The evidence collected by civil society could be vital for the work of United Nations monitoring mechanisms and the International Criminal Court investigation launched last March.

As is so often the case in times of crisis, women are playing a huge role: overwhelmingly it’s men who’ve taken up arms, leaving women taking responsibility for pretty much everything else. Existing civil society organisations (CSOs) have been vital too, quickly repurposing their resources towards the humanitarian and human rights response.

Ukraine is showing that an investment in civil society, as part of the essential social fabric, is an investment in resilience. It can quite literally mean the difference between life and death. Continued support is needed so civil society can maintain its energy and be ready to play its full part in rebuilding the country and democracy once the war is over.

Russia’s crackdown

Vladimir Putin also knows what a difference an enabled and active civil society can make, which is why he’s moved to further shut down Russia’s already severely restricted civic space.

One of the latest victims is Meduza, one of the few remaining independent media outlets. In January it was declared an ‘undesirable organisation’. This in effect bans the company from operating in Russia and criminalises anyone who even shares a link to its content.

Independent broadcaster TV Rain and radio station Echo of Moscow were earlier victims, both blocked last March. They continue broadcasting online, as Meduza will keep working from its base in Latvia, but their reach across Russia and ability to provide independent news to a public otherwise fed a diet of Kremlin disinformation and propaganda is sharply diminished.

It’s all part of Putin’s attempt to control the narrative. Last March a law was passed imposing long jail sentences for spreading what the state calls ‘false information’ about the war. Even calling it a war is a criminal act.

The dangers were made clear when journalist Maria Ponomarenko was sentenced to six years in jail over a Telegram post criticising the Russian army’s bombing of a theatre where people were sheltering in Mariupol last March. She’s one of a reported 141 people so far prosecuted for spreading supposedly ‘fake’ information about the Russian army.

CSOs are in the firing line too. The latest targeted is the Moscow Helsinki Group, Russia’s oldest human rights organisation. In January, a court ordered its shutdown. Several other CSOs have been forced out of existence.

In December an enhanced law on ‘foreign agents’ came into force, giving the state virtually unlimited power to brand any person or organisation who expresses dissent as a ‘foreign agent’, a label that stigmatises them.

The state outrageously mischaracterises its imperial war as a fight against the imposition of ‘western values’, making LGBTQI+ people another convenient target. In November a law was passed widening the state’s restriction of what it calls ‘LGBT propaganda’. Already the impacts are being felt with heavy censorship and the disappearance of LGBTQI+ people from public life.

The chilling effect of all these repressive measures and systematic disinformation have helped damp down protest pressure.

But despite expectation of detention and violence, people have protested. Thousands took to the streets across Russia to call for peace as the war began. Further protests came on Russia’s Independence Day in June and in September, following the introduction of a partial mobilisation of reservists.

Criminalisation has been the predictable response: over 19,500 people have so far been detained at anti-war protests. People have been arrested even for holding up blank signs in solo protests.

It’s clear there are many Russians Putin doesn’t speak for. One day his time will end and there’ll be a need to rebuild Russia’s democracy. The reconstruction will need to come from the ground up, with investment in civil society. Those speaking out, whether in Russia or in exile, need to be supported as the future builders of Russian democracy.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Russia’s new law banning any promotion of what is seen as “non-traditional sexual relations” could stigmatise the LGBTQI community and put HIV/AIDS prevention at risk.

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Dec 16 2022 (IPS)

A new law banning LGBTQI ‘propaganda’ in Russia will further stigmatise LGBTQI people in the country and could worsen what is already one of the world’s worst HIV/AIDS epidemics, critics have warned.

The legislation, approved by President Vladimir Putin at the start of this month, bans any promotion of what authorities see as “non-traditional sexual relations”.

Groups working with Russia’s LGBTQI community say the new law – an extension of 2013 legislation banning the positive portrayal of same-sex relationships to minors – will effectively make outreach work illegal, potentially severely impacting HIV prevention and treatment among what is a key population for the disease.

It also comes amid intensifying anti-LGBTQI political rhetoric and a Kremlin crackdown on the minority and civic organisations helping it.

“Since 2014, Russia has been purposefully driving HIV service organizations underground. The new law is another nail in the coffin of effective HIV prevention among vulnerable populations,” Evgeny Pisemsky, an LGBTQI activist from Orel in Russia, who runs the Russian LGBTQI information and news website parniplus.com, told IPS.

Russia has one of the worst HIV epidemics in the world. For much of the last decade the country has seen some of the highest rates of new infection recorded anywhere – between 80,000 and 100,000 per year between 2013 and 2019, although this has fallen to 60,000 in the last two years.

Officials figures for the total number of people infected range from between 850,000 cited by the Health Ministry and 1.3 million according to data from the Russian Federal AIDS Centre. The real figure though is believed to be much higher as the Russian Federal AIDS Centre estimates half of people with HIV are unaware of their infection.

Experts on the disease have repeatedly criticised Russian authorities’ approach to HIV prevention and treatment, especially the criminalisation and stigmatisation of key populations, including LGBTQI people.

Indeed, the new legislation is an extension of a controversial 2013 law banning the promotion of LGBTQI relationships to minors. This was denounced by human rights groups as discriminatory, but also criticised by infectious disease experts who suggested it further stigmatised gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM), affecting their access to HIV prevention and treatment.

Organisations working with the LGBTQI community in Russia worry the new legislation could make the situation even worse.

Gennady Roshchupkin, Community Systems Advisor at the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity NGO, told IPS: “Practice in many countries has proved that increased stigma of marginalized populations leads to increased discrimination towards these groups, and, subsequently, these people increasingly frequently refuse to come forward for [HIV] testing and help.

“Formally, the new anti-LGBTQI law puts no limits on providing LGBTQI people with medical help and examinations. But, of course, the ban on sharing information with anyone about the specific characteristics of their sexual life may significantly decrease the quality and timeliness of testing and care.”

Meanwhile, Pisemsky said outreach work was likely to stop in its current form as provision of some services will now be too risky.

“All outreach work will go deep underground. Even online counselling will be dangerous,” he said.

The law could also impact LGBTQI mental health – research showed LGBTQI youth mental health was negatively affected after implementation of the 2013 legislation – which could, in turn, promote risky sexual behaviours.

“We cannot know what exactly will happen. Use of alcohol and practice of chemsex may increase, and there could be a rise in cases of long-term depression and suicides. But what we can say with certainty is that there will be a dramatic decrease in the use of condoms and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) – unprotected sex with an unknown partner is also an indicator of mental and cognitive conditions in the age of HIV – sexual health literacy, and self-esteem among LGBTQI people,” said Roshchupkin.

Meanwhile, international organisations heading the fight against HIV/AIDS have attacked the law, warning of its potentially serious impact on public health.

“Punitive and restrictive laws increase the risk of acquiring HIV and decrease access to services… Such laws make it harder for people to protect their health and that of their communities,” UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement.

But such warnings are almost certain to fall on deaf ears, at least among Russian lawmakers.

Although homosexuality was decriminalised in the early 1990s after the fall of communism, LGBTQI people face widespread prejudice and discrimination in Russia. The country placed 46 out of 49 European countries in the latest rankings of LGBTQI inclusion by the rights group ILGA-Europe.

These attitudes are fuelled by what many LGBTQI activists say is a systematic state policy to stigmatise and persecute the minority.

Since the 2013 law was implemented, authorities have cracked down on NGOs campaigning for LGBTQI rights, using various legislation to force them to close. At the same time, politicians have intensified anti-LGBTQI rhetoric, and regularly attack the community.

Indeed, the new legislation was overwhelmingly supported in parliament, with senior political figures rushing to defend it as a necessary measure against Western threats to traditional Russian values.

Chairman of Russia’s federal parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said about the law: “We must do everything to protect our children and those who want to live a normal life. Everything else is sin, sodomy, darkness, and our country is fighting this.”

International rights groups say it is clear the law has been brought in for a specific discriminatory purpose.

“There is no other way of seeing it than as an extreme and systematic effort to stigmatise, isolate, and marginalise the entire Russian LGBTQI community. It is an abhorrent example of homophobia and should be repealed,” Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, told IPS.

“This law has a characteristic similarity to other repressive laws adopted in Russia in recent years – the opportunity for its arbitrary interpretation. In an environment that is as repressive as Russia’s is right now, rather than deciding to take the risk of falling foul of the law and speaking openly about relationships or sexuality, people will just remain silent.

“This law emerged in a climate of cumulative repression of human rights and repressive laws across the board, which seek to silence dissent, and, through the force of law, enforce conformism,” she added.

Pisemsky agreed: “Laws like this one are designed to scare people. Fear needs to be constantly fed with something, otherwise it stops working. This law is not the last step in the escalation of homophobia in Russia.”

The effects of the ban, which essentially makes any positive depictions of the LGBTQI community in literature, film, television, online, and other media illegal with stiff fines (up to 80,000 US Dollars for organisations) for breaches, have been immediately visible.

Pisemsky described how HIV service organizations had altered their websites and social media pages to comply with the law, while Roshchupkin said LGBTQI community health centres were removing from their premises homoerotic posters and brochures with explicit depictions of same-sex sexual acts.

Meanwhile, Russia’s first queer museum, in St Petersburg, had to close its doors just weeks after opening to comply with the law, bookshops have cleared their shelves of works dealing with LGBTQI themes and libraries have taken to displaying similar works with blank covers.

It is unclear what other effects the law will have, but some LGBTQI organisations which spoke to IPS said people had been in touch with them asking for advice on emigrating.

Nikita Iarkov, a volunteer with the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, an NGO which helps people with HIV in Russia, said that though he did not think there was yet widespread fear among LGBTQI people in Russia, he is realistic about what the future holds for many of them.

“Unfortunately, this is not the first law discriminating [against LGBTQI people]. This kind of ban is sort of a regular practice now,” he told IPS.

“I hope that clubs in Moscow and St Petersburg will remain safe spaces for queer people, but I think that it will be impossible to have openly queer parties and clubs.”

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A couple participate in the gay pride parade in San Salvador, held before the state of emergency was declared on Mar. 27, under which the government is carrying out massive raids in search of suspected gang members. Members of the LGBTI community are among those arbitrarily detained, victims of police homophobia and transphobia. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Nov 21 2022 (IPS)

Police raids against gang members in El Salvador, under a state of emergency in which some civil rights have been suspended, have also affected members of the LGBTI community, and everything points to arrests motivated by hatred of their sexual identity.

Personal accounts gathered by IPS revealed that some of the arrests were characterized by an attitude of hatred towards gays and especially transsexuals on the part of police officers."Cases like this, which reveal hatred towards gay or trans people, are happening, but the organizations are not really speaking out, because of the fear that has been generated by the ‘state of exception’.” -- Cultura Trans

“Cases like this, which reveal hatred towards gay or trans people, are happening, but the organizations are not really speaking out, because of the fear that has been generated by the ‘state of exception’,” an activist with Cultura Trans, a San Salvador-based organization of the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex) community, told IPS.

Hatred of homosexuals and transgender people

The activist, who asked to remain anonymous, said that another member of his organization, a gay man known as Carlos, has been detained since Jul. 13, after he complained about the arrest two months earlier of his sister Alessandra, a trans teenager.

The authorities have accused them of “illicit association,” the charge used to arrest alleged gang members or collaborators, under the state of emergency.

“The case against Carlos was staged, it was invented,” said the source. “He is a human rights activist in the trans community, we have documents that show that he participates in our workshops, in our activities.”

A police officer stops a young man in San Salvador and checks his back and other parts of his body for gang-related tattoos, one of the elements used by authorities to track down gang members in El Salvador. Since the state of emergency was declared, 58,000 people have been detained, in many cases arbitrarily, among them members of the LGBTI community. CREDIT: National Civil Police

The state of exception, under which some civil rights are suspended, has been in force in El Salvador since Mar. 27, when the government of Nayib Bukele launched a crusade against criminal gangs, with the backing of the legislature, which is controlled by the ruling New Ideas party.

Gangs have been responsible for the majority of crimes committed in this Central American country for decades.

According to the constitution, a state of exception can be in place for 30 days, and can be extended for another 30. But a legal loophole has allowed the government and Congress to renew the measure every month, under the argument that this was already done during the 1980-1992 civil war.

This interpretation could only be modified by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. But Bukele, with the backing of the legislature, named five hand-picked magistrates to that chamber in May 2021, in what his critics say marked the beginning of a shift towards authoritarianism, two years into his term.

Since Mar. 27, the police and military have imprisoned some 58,000 people.

In most cases no arrest warrants were issued by a judge, and the arrests are generally based on gang members’ police files.

In addition, anonymous tips by the public to a hotline set up by the government have gradually expanded the number of people arrested.

“The state of emergency exposes you to an inefficient prosecutor, incapable of investigating and linking people to crimes,” William Hernández, director of Entre Amigos, an LGBTI organization founded in 1994, told IPS.

He added: “If a police officer decides to detain someone and make a report of the arrest, they go out to look for them, but there’s no record of who reported that individual, where the information came from, and no one knows who investigated them.”

Among the 58,000 detainees are some 40 people from the LGBTI community, according to a report made public in October by Cristosal and other human rights organizations that monitor abuses committed by the Salvadoran authorities under the state of exception.

These organizations have collected some 4,000 complaints of arbitrary detentions and other abuses, including torture, committed against detainees. Some 80 people have died in police custody and in prison.

Carlos is a gay man who spoke out against the arrest of his younger sister Alessandra, a trans woman seized in May by Salvadoran police, accused of belonging to a gang. In July he was also arrested and so far little is known about their situation, under the state of emergency in El Salvador, which has led to the imprisonment of 58,000 people. CREDIT: Courtesy of Cultura Trans

Police homophobia

In the case of Carlos, 32, and his sister Alessandra, 18, the information available is that she was arrested in May in one of the police sweeps, in a poor neighborhood in the north of San Salvador.

She was arrested for not having a personal identity card. She had recently turned 18, the age of majority, and she should have obtained the document, which is needed for any kind of official procedure.

The police officers who arrested Alessandra told her mother that she was only being taken for 72 hours, while the situation was clarified.

However, something that could have been easily investigated and resolved turned into an ordeal for her and her family, especially her mother, who was facing several health ailments, said the Cultura Trans activist.

“She was in the ‘bartolinas’ (dungeons) of the Zacamil (a police station in that poor neighborhood),” the source said. “We went to leave food for her, then they sent her to the Mariona prison. We realized that she had been beaten and sexually abused, because she was being held in a men’s facility.”

He added: “When they took Alessandra, her mother told us that the police told the girl ‘culero, we are going to take you to be raped, to be f**ked,’ which is what actually did happen. ‘We’re going to take you so that you learn not to dress like a woman’.”

Culero is a pejorative term used in El Salvador against gays.

Meanwhile, her brother Carlos spoke out against Alessandra’s arrest, during activities carried out by the LGBTI community.

In May, in a march against “homo-lesbo-transphobia” – hatred of gays, lesbians and trans people – he carried several handmade signs calling for his sister’s release from prison.

The authorities visited Carlos’ house, and threatened to arrest him as well, which they did on Jul. 13.

According to the source, the police and prosecutors put together a case and accused him of illicit association. They are asking for a 20-year prison sentence.

“It’s not because of illicit association, we know that very well. It’s because he’s a human rights activist in the LGBTI community, and because he has been demanding the release of his sister,” said the Cultura Trans activist.

“We want him back with us, and his sister too,” he said.

William Hernández, director of the association Entre Amigos, said that the police and the Attorney General’s Office stage raids against alleged gang members without carrying out proper investigations to substantiate the arrests or to release detainees if they are innocent. The Salvadoran government has been on a crusade against gangs since March, but in the process there have been numerous abuses and illegal detentions, according to human rights organizations. CREDIT: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Underreporting hides the real number of cases

According to reports by the NGOs, while the 40 people from the LGBTI community who have been detained represent a small proportion of the total number of people arrested, there could be an underreporting of undocumented cases, especially in rural areas.

“In this country, although it’s small, there may be cases in remote places involving people who have never contacted an NGO. These are cases that remain invisible,” Catalina Ayala, a trans woman activist with Diké, an LGBTI organization whose name refers to justice in Greek mythology, told IPS.

Ayala said that, although she has not personally experienced transphobia from the authorities on the streets of San Salvador, and her organization has not received concrete reports of cases like Alessandra’s, she did not rule out that they could be happening.

“I think it’s a positive thing that the authorities are arresting gang members, but not people who have nothing to do with crime, or just because they are LGBTI,” she said.

The organization’s lawyer, Jenifer Fernández, said Diké has provided legal assistance to 12 people from the LGBTI community who have been detained, mainly because they were not carrying their identity documents.

In one of the cases, the police said things that could be construed as transphobic, although there was also a basic suspicion, since she was a trans woman without an identity document.

“She was a 25-year-old woman who had never had a DUI, an identity document, because she suffered from gender dysphoria and was afraid to go to register, afraid of being asked to cut her hair or to remove her make-up,” said Fernández.

Gender dysphoria is a sense of unease caused by a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity and has repercussions on their ability to function socially.

“The arrest report said that she was a gang member disguised as a woman, that they did not know who she was, that she gave a name but that it could not be proven without a DUI,” the lawyer explained.

But Fernández added that, in general, with or without a state of exception, trans women suffer the most from harassment, mockery and aggression.

Of the 12 cases, 11 of the individuals were released, and only one remains in custody because, according to the police, there is evidence that the person may have had ties to a gang, although the details of that evidence are unknown.

Call to stop abuses

On Nov. 11, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed concern over “the persistence of massive and allegedly arbitrary arrests” by Salvadoran authorities under the state of emergency.

It also reported non-compliance with judicial guarantees, and called on the government “to implement citizen security actions that guarantee the rights and freedoms established in the American Convention on Human Rights and in line with Inter-American standards.”

Among the constitutional rights suspended since the beginning of the state of emergency on Mar. 27 are the rights of association and assembly, although the government says this only applies to criminal groups meeting to plan crimes.

It also restricts the right to a defense and extends the period in which a person can be detained and presented in court, which Salvadoran law sets at a maximum of three days.

On Nov. 16, Congress, which is controlled by the governing party, approved a new extension of the state of emergency, which it has done at the end of each month.

New Ideas lawmakers have said that the restriction of civil rights will be extended as long as necessary, “until the last gang member is arrested.”

In this country of 6.7 million people, there are an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 gang members.

Bukele’s party holds 56 seats in the 84-member legislature, and thanks to three allied parties they have a total of 60 votes, which gives them a large absolute majority.

Bindya Rana, a Karachi-based transgender activist and founder and president of Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA), and Shahzadi Rai, a Karachi-based transgender person, believe that the debate over the law protecting the rights of transgender persons is problematic. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Karachi, Oct 6 2022 (IPS)

It has taken four years for some politicians to oppose a landmark law protecting the rights of transgender persons, saying it’s against Islam and the country’s constitution.

“This is an imposed, imported, anti-Islam, anti-Quran legislation,” said Senator Mushtaq Ahmed, a Pakistani politician belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), spearheading the campaign. “The West is hitting at the two strongest institutions of the Muslim Ummah – the family and marriage; they want to weaken us,” he told IPS from Peshawar, adding that this will “open the road” for homosexuality and same-sex marriage. 

According to Ahmed, for the last four years, the government, with support from non-governmental organizations, was “shamelessly pushing the agenda of Europe and America,” terming it “cultural terrorism.”

Other politicians have also joined in voicing their concerns. For instance, PTI senator, Mohsin Aziz, said transgender people were homosexuals, and “Qaum-e Loot” referred to homosexuality introduced by the people of Sodom. “The longer we take in making amends, the longer the wrath of God will be upon us,” he added. He is among those who have recently presented amendments to the law.

“Using religion to stoke people’s sentiments sets a very dangerous precedence,” warned Shahzadi Rai, a Karachi-based transgender person. “Spare us; our community cannot fight back.” 

Rai asked that the issue not be seen through the “prism of religion,” adding, “even we do not accept homosexuality.”

Physician Dr Sana Yasir, who has a special interest in gender variance and bodily diversity and offers gender-affirming healthcare services, said there was no mention of homosexuality in the Act.

“The right-wing politicians need such issues to keep their politics alive,” said Anis Haroon, commissioner for the National Commission for Human Rights, which was part of consultations on the Act and fully supported it.

Ahmed had presented certain amendments to the Act last year, and earlier this month, he introduced a brand-new bill for the protection of khunsa, an Arabic word he said was for people “born with birth defects in the genitalia.” If passed, the Act will apply to the entire country and come into force immediately. 

In the proposed bill, khunsa is defined as a person who has a “mixture of male and female genital features or congenital ambiguities.” The person will have the right to register as a male or female based on certification from a medical board.

“I studied the old law for a good two years after it was enacted; held discussions with many jurists, even international ones, medical doctors, religious scholars. Based on the information gathered, I came up with amendments to the 2018 law,” Ahmed said, defending his stance and explaining why it took four years to oppose a law passed by a two-thirds majority in the Senate and the Parliament. He has also filed a petition in the Federal Shariat Court against the 2018 Act.

The right-wing Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-Fazl) and parliamentarians belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have also voiced their concern and opposed the 2018 act. 

“Allah has just mentioned sons and daughters in the Quran; there is no mention of another gender,” said PTI’s senator, Fauzia Arshad, speaking to IPS. She has also presented amendments to the Senate’s standing committee on human rights.

The country’s top religious advisory body, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), has also termed it unIslamic law.

“We respect the rights of the transgenders given in the 2018 Act, but when it transgresses beyond biology, and psychology and sociology come into play, we have reservations,” said Dr Qibla Ayaz, chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology, talking to IPS from Islamabad. He also said the council was never approached when the bill was debated.   

The law, instead of defining gender, has defined gender identity: A person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female, or a blend of both or neither, that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth. It also refers to gender expression: A person’s presentation of their gender identity and/or the one others perceive.

 JI, meanwhile, has defined gender as a “person’s expression as per his or her sex which is not different than the sex assigned to him or her at the time of birth or as per the advice of a medical board.”

“We do not believe in self-perceived gender identity of a person and are asking for a medical board to be constituted to ascertain that,” said Ahmed.

Arshad endorsed this: “The sex of a person is determined from where the person urinates and should be determined by a medical board.”

“Self-perception of who you think you want to be, and not what you are born as is not in the Quran.”

“CII has some reservations about the self-perceived identity,” said Ayaz.

To rule out “real from fake” transgender people, Ahmed’s bill has recommended constituting a gender reassignment medical board in every district, which would include a professor doctor, a male and a female general surgeon, a psychologist, and a chief medical officer. 

“Any sex reassignment surgery to change the genitalia will be prohibited if the person is diagnosed with a psychological disorder or gender dysphoria,” he said. Arshad agreed with this view.

“A medical board can help people figure out their gender identity by offering them personality tests and blood works. They can help decrease the intensity of gender dysphoria by offering non-medical and medical interventions,” said Yasir. 

But the board cannot reject someone’s “experienced gender,” she asserted.

Yasir added there was no mention of a geneticist, a psychiatrist, or those trained in transgender health on the board.

Healthcare professionals argue that constituting medical boards in Pakistan’s 160 districts is nearly impossible. The complex issue requires genetic testing (from abroad), which is expensive for a resource-stretched country like Pakistan, and meticulous diagnosis by scarce experts. 

The trans community has rejected the option of the constitution of a medical board outright. 

“We will never allow anyone to examine us,” said Bindya Rana, a Karachi-based transgender activist and founder and president of Gender Interactive Alliance (GIA). “We know, who we are, just like the men and women in this country know who they are!” 

If this debate has done one thing, it is to validate and increase transphobia.

“Harassment, discrimination, and violence have increased due to the negative propaganda led by Jamat-e-Islami,” said Reem Sharif, a trans activist based in Islamabad.

“A week ago, one transgender was murdered. The alleged murderer is behind bars, but during interrogation, he told the police that he was on jihad as killing transgenders would take him straight to heaven. He is sure he will be released and will finish off the job,” said Rai.

She also recalled the horrific attack on three well-known transwomen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swabi two weeks back. “They received several bullets, but fortunately, all survived,” she said. The attack spread panic and fear among the community. Rai said the transphobia was “contained, but now it is out in the open.”

“There is a definite backlash,” agreed Lahore-based Moon Chaudhary. “Ten days ago, in Lahore, a few trans persons were publicly harassed at a posh locality. They were forcefully disrobed, asked about their gender, and then raped,” she said.

According to Aisha Mughal, the “more visible trans activists” like her, are increasingly feeling vulnerable. “Bullying is going on, and people are openly threatening. She gets scores of text messages from unknown numbers referring to her as a “man,” causing “mental torment.”

Rai said she feared for her life since she was actively participating in defending the law on various TV channels, and participating in debates organized by clerics. “I’m worried and have told my flatmates to be vigilant and take extra precautions in letting in their friends.” 

Transgender activists are also fighting on another front – cyberspace. 

“I am being misgendered on national television; then the same clips are shared on social media, which go viral. I am accused of being a man and feigning as a woman,” said Mughal. She said some are provoking people to go on a jihad against them and setting a “dangerous precedent.”

“I thought I was strong and would be able to handle online abuse, but it is taking a toll and affecting my mental health,” Rai admitted. For instance, of the 900 comments on a video clip on social media, 600 were abusive. There were some that were downright violent in nature, calling for her murder or burning her to death. “My photos are being circulated with vulgar messages attached,” she added.

Although Rana admitted the campaign against the 2018 law has brought “irreparable damage” to the transgender cause, she is confident the newly-presented bill by JI was just to create a storm in a teacup and will not see the light of day. 

“All that we worked for, for years, has come to naught,” she lamented. While the law prohibited discrimination against transgender persons seeking education, healthcare, employment, or trade, Rana said, “we never benefitted on any score” except the right to change the name and gender on the national identity card, the driving license, and the passport. For us, even that was a big win,” she said. About 28,000 transgender persons had their gender corrected. But now, even that right is in danger. 

Ahmed said his struggle would continue. “If the khunsa bill finds no takers, we [JI] will take it to the Supreme Court of Pakistan and start street protests,” he warned, adding: “It’s a ticking time bomb!” 

IPS UN Bureau Report

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In its premises located in a middle-class district of Lima, the organization Féminas Perú holds meetings of trans women every Tuesday night. They began meeting in 2015 and today they are taking on the challenge of strengthening their leadership and empowering their community. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

By Mariela Jara
LIMA, Sep 12 2022 (IPS)

“Without recognition of your identity by the State and society, there is no exercise of citizenship or rights,” said Leyla Huerta, director of Féminas Perú, an organization that has been working since 2015 to empower transgender women in the face of the highly vulnerable situation they find themselves in.

She is 44 years old and as a trans woman has experienced multiple situations of discrimination because of her gender identity.

“We have all had the experience of being told ‘I don’t want to discriminate against you, I’m just reading what your identity document says.’ That legalizes discrimination,” she said in her dialogue with IPS during one of the days of meetings and activities held every week at Féminas Perú’s headquarters in Pueblo Libre, a middle-class residential district in the capital."I am a visible trans person and I have been prey to moments of vulnerability not only of my rights but of my identity, in many ways and places. It is complicated for us to go to the bank, to use health services, to ride a bus, to just walk down the street. You feel people watching you, my body is a disturbance.” -- Gretel Warmicha

Huerta said “we saw this clearly in the case of Rodrigo and Sebastián, in which the denial of rights crossed borders and exposed them to extortion, torture and death.”

She was referring to the case of two young Peruvian transsexuals, Rodrigo Ventosilla and Sebastián Marallano, who had just been married in Chile – where same-sex marriage is legal – and were detained upon arrival at the Bali airport on their honeymoon and subjected to cruel treatment between Aug. 6 and 10, according to their families.

The abuse caused the death of Rodrigo, while according to the families and their lawyers the Peruvian government and its diplomats in Indonesia failed them. They have denounced the Peruvian and Indonesian authorities for the crime of torture resulting in death.

The case is considered a hate crime by human rights activists and has helped bring to the forefront the discrimination faced on so many fronts by transgender people from this country.

Féminas emerged with the idea of creating a space for the community empowerment of trans women. Huerta promoted it while coordinating a project to approve a health care model for trans women.

“Instead of continuing to be a target population of NGO projects, we wanted to be the ones to lead them ourselves and with the resources we also wanted to build capacity in our community,” she explained at the Féminas office.

They have met at the organization’s office every Tuesday for the past seven years, offering a safe, welcoming meeting space for learning about their rights, while at the same time taking on the challenge of leading and running their organization.

“It is hard for Féminas to find leaders, people who want to join, because trans people have such pressing day-to-day needs, and the exclusion they face is much stronger,” she said.

Leyla Huerta, a 44-year-old Peruvian activist and trans woman, has achieved through a judicial process the recognition of her right to her lived identity. She has initiated new legal proceedings for the recognition of her gender. The identity documents of trans persons still carry the names assigned to them at birth and the Peruvian government has thrown up barriers to changing them. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

Barriers in the State

The Peruvian constitution recognizes the right to equality and non-discrimination, but it is a dead letter for trans people, who face barriers from the State when trying to modify the identity assigned to them at birth.

This South American country of 33 million people lacks an administrative procedure for recognizing an individual’s chosen gender identity and lived name. This legal vacuum forces transgender people to initiate legal proceedings that require financial resources and time.

In 2019, the National Commission Against Discrimination of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights issued a report recommending that civil registry offices rectify their procedures for non-discriminatory access to the National Identity Card (DNI).

It stated that in the case of trans persons, the fact that the information on their DNI does not coincide with their lived identity causes them to receive humiliating treatment, increasing their vulnerability.

However, administrative barriers persist.

The report indicated that by 2019 there were 140 judicial proceedings seeking identity change, of which only nine had been completed and four had obtained rulings.

Only six percent of 400 trans women interviewed had managed to change their identity document, according to a survey conducted in Lima and neighboring Callao, the country’s main port city, carried out in 2020 on behalf of various organizations, including Féminas Perú, and published by the non-governmental Promsex.

A group of trans women involved in the performing arts with whom IPS spoke in the room of a mutual friend of theirs identify as women but still have the male names assigned to them at birth on their ID cards, because they can’t afford the legal proceedings to try to get them changed.

They said they would need at least 775 dollars – money they do not have because of their pressing day-to-day needs.

A group of trans women involved in the performing arts told IPS about their forms of resistance to a system that discriminates against them and leaves them “last in line”. From left to right, Gretel, Brisa, Victoria and Gía are friends, they support each other, share their experiences and they all yearn for a dignified life that “deserves to be livable”. CREDIT: Mariela Jara/IPS

“My body is a disturbance”

Gretel Warmicha, 30, is a multidisciplinary artist. She considers herself a trans woman, transvestite and transsexual and she has transitioned – as the process of changing from one sex to another is called – not only in her gender, but in her religion and in “practices that one follows, to detach oneself from this rigid and ignorant masculinity.”

She was living in the Andean city of Cuzco and is now in Lima for work. She considers herself fortunate to have been able to study and to have a support network, but she feels that the most difficult thing is to recognize that she deserves a livable life “due to the heteronormative system” that marginalizes and violates them, and that she and the others experience on a daily basis.

“I am a visible trans person and I have been prey to moments of vulnerability not only of my rights but of my identity, in many ways and places. It is complicated for us to go to the bank, to use health services, to ride a bus, to just walk down the street. You feel people watching you, my body is a disturbance.”

Making the transition to a gender expression that corresponds to their identity and way of life is very difficult for them. Even though in most cases they felt like girls from an early age, they do not have the conditions to live that way in freedom and dignity due to rejection by society.

“In Peru there is no such thing as a trans childhood, many of us transitioned as adults. I did it when the pandemic started,” said Victoria, 32, who preferred not to give her last name.

“They locked us all up at home and I said to myself: how would I want to live if I only had a month left? Is this the life I really want, is this who I really am, is this how I really want to see myself? That was what pushed me to do it, since life is so short and trans life is even shorter, I wanted to enjoy every moment being who I really am,” she said.

To live the identity they identify with means beginning to make changes in their physical appearance that require hormonal therapies. They usually go through this process without proper medical care due to its high cost and their distrust in the system.

“I confess that during the pandemic I had to do sexual service to be able to buy my hormones. Being a trans woman is expensive, you need about 200 soles a month (51 dollars),” she said.

“The state does not give you treatment, only testosterone blockers and condoms, because it is part of the anti-HIV/AIDS program (to which they have access even if they do not have the virus). If there aren’t funds for treatment for HIV, there are even less for us. We will always be the last in line,” she lamented.

She acknowledged that the “word of mouth” system among friends to help each other make the transition is not safe in terms of health because it is likely, for example, that the estrogen that works for one is harmful to another. “But we have no choice, it’s Russian roulette,” she said.

Gia, 33, also gave only her first name. A poet and artist like her friends, she transitioned during the pandemic as well. She recently moved out of the family home due to pressure from her mother; it was no longer a safe environment for her. When asked how she sees herself in the future, she replies: “dead”.

Although if she thinks about what she would like to do in the future, she draws a picture where she owns a television production company and she and her friends have decent jobs. An aspiration shared by all of them, since the precariousness of employment and income is a constant in their lives.

When asked about the life expectancy of trans women, they said the average was 35 years.

“If you don’t die because of health problems, you die because they kill you, which happened to a trans man friend of ours, Rodrigo. He made it to the age of 32, he studied at the university, he had a scholarship to Harvard (in the United States) and a promising future. And despite all that he died for being trans. It’s a reminder that our life is not worth anything,” Gía said, clouding everyone’s faces and plunging the room into silence.

Women have been highly impacted by the Ukraine war, and have headed humanitarian efforts in their communities, but are still absent from leadership positions. UN Women and Care called for their meaningful inclusion in planning and decision-making processes. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Naureen Hossain
New York, May 11 2022 (IPS)

A joint UN Women and CARE report on the gender disparities in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis calls for donors and humanitarian partners to take greater care to promote the voices of women and marginalized communities in the humanitarian effort.

The Rapid Gender Analysis by UN Women and CARE, released on May 4, 2022, revealed the challenges and hardships women and minority groups face in Ukraine. UN Women and CARE officers conducted interviews with over 170 participants to determine how the war impacted their needs and concerns.

The war has affected multiple areas of life, from education and healthcare access to their livelihoods. In the last two months, women have emerged to take on more authority in households and the community, including community and civil society organizations.

Women have been at the forefront of humanitarian efforts, the report reveals. However, they have not been included in leadership or the decision-making process.

The risk is that current humanitarian efforts do not fully address the more complex needs of the affected civilians, such as the disabled, people who have already been displaced before the current crisis, and ethnic minorities, such as the Roma.

Among the report’s key findings, women, men, boys, and girls have different needs that must be considered in the humanitarian response.

However, the current frameworks of humanitarian aid need to improve to address their complex needs better.

Women, minorities, and other underrepresented groups face greater pressure with the compounded and intersectional impact of the crisis that can leave them more vulnerable during conflicts or the loss of income.

Even though they are at the forefront of humanitarian efforts in their communities, they are not included in the decision-making process of how humanitarian aid is disseminated to even the most vulnerable groups.

Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, said: “It’s critical that the humanitarian response in Ukraine takes into account and addresses the different needs of women and girls, men and boys, including those that are furthest left behind…Women have been playing vital roles in their communities’ humanitarian response. They must also be meaningfully involved in the planning and decision-making processes to make sure that their specific needs are met, especially those related to health, safety, and access to livelihoods.”

Erika Kvapilova, UN Women Representative for Ukraine agreed. She said the organization’s contribution to the humanitarian response highlighted the importance for targeted aid to be “fully informed by women’s and girls’ needs and priorities. For example, the most recent Flash Appeal informed by the findings of the Rapid Gender Analysis in Ukraine provides sex-disaggregated data of the targeted population and underlines the importance of gender and age responsive protection, assistance, and access to humanitarian aid and services. It also calls for increased action to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse.”

However, she was concerned about women’s representation in decision-making.

“In the CSO survey conducted by UN Women in March, women have reported that they are being excluded from important decision-making processes at all levels, whilst at the same time being forced to play a critical role in the humanitarian response.”

Siobhán Foran, CARE Regional Gender in Emergencies Coordinator, Ukraine Response said programmes were being initiated to partner with women’s organizations.

“CARE, for example, initiated a programme called Women Lead in Emergency, to increase and enhance women’s organizations’ participation in humanitarian decision-making with concrete financial, technical and capacity-strengthening support.”

Foran said women activists from Ukrainian civil society and women’s organizations were present and vocal in the sector coordination meetings.

“Now the partnerships with women’s organizations are increasingly in place, it’s really critical we see humanitarian action accommodate Ukrainian women’s existing and organic activism and leadership and adapt programming in line with the advice they give through reports like this CARE/UN Women Rapid Gender Analysis and in the many forums they attend.”

This debate about the role of women in crises was again highlighted in a UN Women Media Compact event. The discussion focused on the findings of the report and media experiences reporting on the war in Ukraine through the lens of gender.

Felicia Dahlquist, Programme Analyst from UN Women’s Ukraine office, and Siobhan Foran, CARE Gender in Emergencies Coordinator took to the podium and agreed that there was a need for gender-responsive and socially inclusive humanitarian efforts. This response could address the needs across different sectors, from providing shelter and non-food items (NFI) and education to lessening the care burden on mothers at home.

Dahlquist and Foran acknowledged that multiple areas need to be addressed all at once in a crisis. This runs the risk of other factors such as gender and diversity competing for attention.

Another recommendation was to increase communications to ensure accountability to the affected populations. This would mean implementing feedback and complaints mechanisms to ensure effective procedures and diverse communications channels to disseminate information on humanitarian aid to various groups.

A key topic of discussion was the role that media could play in reporting the stories of women, men, and minority groups on the humanitarian front.

The speakers said that the media has the ability, and thus a responsibility to address the ongoing issues that women and minorities deal with, to present the nuance and complexity of their experiences within the context of their intersectional experiences.

The media have the potential to reflect the voices of these communities to the general public but also get the attention of donors and humanitarian agencies to increase their efforts to support women-led organizations.

Even as donors and humanitarian agencies are expected to be pragmatic in their program planning and implementation approach, Dahlquist said it is essential to remember the humanity of the people who need this aid.

The media could play a key role in showcasing that human element, especially among those groups that receive less coverage in the news, such as ethnic minorities and the LGBQTIA+ community.

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By Sania Farooqui
NEW DELHI, India, May 11 2022 (IPS)

When it comes to gender equality and development, the Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and the Arab States region continues to be in a paradoxical situation. While within the region, several laws, policies and programming focused on gender equality are growing, women’s representation in government jobs, corporate roles, and national programming seem to be dismissed. Healthcare, education have seen improvement, most countries have become tech inclusive as well, but access to hospitals and educational institutions –at times due to social programming or gender-related policies continues to prevent women from accessing them and using them.

Gender-based human rights assault and violence dominates and devastates the lives of women across the region. Whether it is arbitrary arrests by governments, abductions, assassinations, so called “honour” killings, online trolling, abuse, being denied right to safe abortion, lack of engagement and inclusivity of women in politics, peace and security in the country, women continue to face entrenched discrimination.

Staunch patriarchal character of governments continues to impact the movement towards gender equality, slowing the already slow progress of women’s rights across multiple indicators and indices. The region is yet to see progress towards its commitments made to the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development goals.

Mozn Hassan, Founder, Doria Feminist Fund for Women

None of the harrassment and cases against her stopped Mozn from pursuing “a bigger dream of creating a feminist fund for the region” called Doria Feminist Fund. “Being a local feminist activist in Egypt within a changeable time, running Doria Feminist Fund allowed me to set local feminist agendas and narratives. I figured out that this work needs not only funding, but also resources and accessibility, which is rare in the MENA region and for feminists in MENA. Doria was a dream for me on multiple levels, I named it after Doria Shafik to recognize her resilience,” Hassan said.

In a series of conversations on The Sania Farooqui Show which recently partnered with Doria Feminist Fund and IPS News to bring out powerful voices of women in the MENA region, the CO-CEO of the organization, Zeina Abdul Khalek said, “Doria Feminist Fund seeks to create a feminist ecosystem where the new generation of feminist movement in the MENA region has access to more and better funding and resources which enables the development and sustainability of its activism to advance the rights, wellbeing and security of all women & LGBTQ+ individuals and groups.”

Right to Abortion in MENA
Cultural sensitivity and taboos surrounding sexuality are particularly pronounced in the MENA region, it has taken women activists and even medical professionals years to break the culture of silence that surrounds sexual and reproductive health, as silence often prevents people from seeking information and care and prevents governments from putting the health issues on their development agenda.

Nearly 80% of women in the Middle East and North Africa live in countries where abortion laws are restricted. Among those, 55% live in countries where abortion is prohibited except to save the mother’s life and 24% live in countries where abortion is permitted only to preserve the woman’s physical or mental health.

Turkey and Tunisia allow elective abortions, and like many catholic/christian countries, abortion appears to be a highly controversial topic for the Muslim-majority countries as well as for the Islamic jurisprudence.

Dr. Selma Hajri, Rights & Access of Women to Safe Abortion, MENA Region

According to RAWSA Network that has been working on changing mentalities, behaviours and legislations related to sexual and reproductive rights, as well as advocating for legal abortion in most MENA countries. This report states, “Women resort to clandestine abortions that have a rate higher than in the rest of the world and are responsible for around 9700 deaths each year. Only 47% of women in the MENA region have access to a contraceptive method, while this percentage is 57% worldwide.”

“MENA region is a very conservative region where religion and culture are very restrictive concerning women’s access to reproductive health. They are very conservative and restrict sexual relationships of women who are not married, even for married women it is not easy to talk about it openly.

“We realized the situation of women in this region is very difficult, not because of access to healthcare, but the problem is access to reproductive healthcare and her right to control her body,” says Hajri.

More than 40 million women between the ages of 13 and 44 live in states with restrictive abortion rights, costing those economies $105 billion, according to Women’s Policy Research. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic only made the situation worse. According to RAWSA, unsafe abortions have increased by about 10%, as access to contraception and safe abortion – which most often takes place abroad, have been restricted since the beginning of the pandemic.

United Nations Office of Human Rights High COmmissionar (OHCHR) states that “women’s sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination. The committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimnation against Women (CEDAW) have both clearly indicated that women’s right to health includes their sexual and reporductive health. This means that states have obligations to respect, protect and fulfil rights related to women’s sexual and reproductive health”.

While one watches states, governments, societies across the MENA region fail women by not supporting them, it is a few women like Mozn Hassan and Dr Hajri who dare to do so.

Sania Farooqui is a New Delhi based journalist, filmmaker and host of The Sania Farooqui Show where she regularly speaks to women who have made significant contributions to bring about socio economic changes globally. She writes and reports regularly for IPS news wire.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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LZ is an advocate for women, trans people, and gender minorities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Amidst an “alarming rise in hateful discourse” against transgender people globally, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) warned last month that this community still lacks safeguards against abuse. Credit: UN Women/Dar Al Mussawir

By Cleo Kambugu and Lori Adelman
NEW YORK / KAMPALA, Nov 24 2021 (IPS)

There is a resurgence of anti-trans sentiment right now. It’s not only Dave Chapelle’s toxic rants in his most recent Netflix special: we see it across social, political and cultural arenas including in JK Rowling’s ongoing embrace of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs); the introduction of bills designed to harm trans kids in the US; Uganda’s Sexual Offenses bill, which violates international human rights; and “gender-critical” academics like Kathleen Stock profiting from their inflammatory rhetoric.

These recent examples are alarming, and their impact is devastating for trans people globally. But transphobia is not new. And we won’t make true progress on gender liberation until we address it head-on, including by reclaiming the feminist movement as unabashedly pro-trans.

Cis and trans people’s liberation are linked. The same logic that drives the policing of trans people’s genders also reinforces the anti-feminist notion that a woman dressing “provocatively” is more deserving of violence; that a Black woman’s natural hair renders her less professional or deserving of respect; or that cis men shouldn’t display emotion or risk being perceived as weak.

Many transphobic arguments promote a kind of reproductive essentialism that could be ripped straight out of a page from the Handmaid’s Tale, insisting, for example, that only people who menstruate and/or have a womb are women.

Beyond reducing women down to their bodies in ways that align deeply with patriarchy, such an approach also misgenders cis women who are infertile or can’t menstruate.

Cleo Kambugu

Queer and trans activism can help to defy and free us from deeply engrained patriarchal ideals about what is “normal” or “natural” for women, men, and all of society. And dismantling the gender binary can also help us question other systems that aren’t serving us and imagine a different, better world.

Feminist abolitionist Angela Davis has summed it up thus: “The trans community has taught us how to challenge that which is totally accepted as normal…if it is possible to challenge the gender binary, then we can certainly, effectively, resist prisons, and jails, and police [and on and on].”

Despite these linkages, feminism is too commonly being invoked not as a platform for mobilizing in support of trans rights but as a cover for bigotry. The feminist movement is increasingly co-opted by organized and well-resourced opposition to trans rights, including (majority white women) TERFs who generate swells of attention and sympathy for exploring “debates” like whether trans women are forcing themselves upon lesbians (they’re not) or transitioning too late to deserve our support (also, no).

Even beyond TERFs, plenty of feminists participate in microaggressions; erasures of the trans experience; invasive inquiries about trans people’s bodies; and more. Such ideas and behaviors are entertained in otherwise progressive spaces because they are ostensibly coming from self-identified feminists or voices that have traditionally supported the rights of the marginalized like Chapelle’s own. This has to stop.

If trans lives and identities have long been and continue to be a politically potent rallying cry for people who seem not to care very much for trans people, we need a counter narrative urgently from folks who feel differently.

Lori Adelman

It’s rare to hear from trans people themselves who are fighting not only for survival, tolerance, and visibility — but for the space to thrive. But it’s also too rare to hear from non-trans feminists reclaiming the movement and centering our trans sisters in the work.

Feminists must forcefully counter transphobia and especially the pernicious narrative that we are pitted against each other in the quest for liberation. Affirming trans women as women and trans men as men is a good start, but feminists and all progressives must get beyond tolerance to extend radical support and solidarity to our trans siblings including with funding and across borders.

Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel once said “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” Trolls, TERFS and bigots monopolize so much attention when it comes to trans people and their rights in part because there is no similarly organized and funded corollary within feminism advocating for an alternative view.

This silence is deafening, and directly enables and empowers TERFs and their agenda.

Feminism has its roots in gender liberation, not policing. If we cut our chains, we are free, but when we cut our roots, we die. Just as they would fight misogyny, feminists also need to fight back against transphobia in culture and media (which has real world consequences), in the law, in academia, and in politics.

In the words of the great Angela Davis, feminism should be capacious. A feminist who uses hateful logic to deny trans people rights and resources isn’t a feminist at all. But until we speak up, we will be spoken for.

Cleo Kambugu is a Trans activist, Director of Programmes at UHAI EASHRI and the protagonist of The Pearl of Africa. She is based in Uganda.

Lori Adelman is a Vice President at Global Fund for Women and co-hosts the feminist podcast Cringewatchers. She is based in New York.

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Abandoned by family and friends, transgender people in Bangladesh are subject to extensive daily abuse. The existing and continuously growing transphobia and homophobia in society are obstacles in the lives of this group. The people featured here from the LGBTQ+ community share a wide variety of narratives.

The photo story “The Forbidden Love” seeks to elevate and celebrate love. It portrays the transgender community’s desire to live with and within love. The vividness of their expressions, their enchanting bonding with partners, and their honesty – all of these made these photographs possible – act as a catalyst to destroy stereotypes.

This project is perhaps a way to explore the infinite and beautiful gradient of the representation of love. It attempts to redefine love beyond the gender identities and stigmas through the true reflection of their personas.

“The Forbidden Love” is a collaborative photo project with the LGBTQR+ community in Bangladesh. They have been fighting for their fundamental rights to live with and love their chosen partners and equal rights. The interviews with the LGBTQR+ community was source material to recreate their memories and transform them into photographic montages.

“I feel free when I am in nature. I haven’t spent a single day without abuse. People bullied me, hurt me, betrayed me. I was always strong, always. Some days some clients would take me to the jungle for sex and use me badly. I have no complaint with anybody. When I feel alone, devastated, I come to this place. I come here to cry loudly. I cry the loudest cry. I feel free; I feel I can live another day.” – Bobita, a 21-year-old transwoman
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“It was love at first sight. We stared at each other and knew there is something. I was hurt, betrayed, tortured in the past. For a transwoman, love is like poison, and it kills the heart. But my partner left his world for me. We are together for one year now. I know there are days when he misses his family – who have stopped talking to him. He says someday they will accept us. I do not hope for anything. As long as we are together, life is beautiful.” – Ash is an 18-year-old transwoman who had to leave home at the age of nine due to societal humiliation.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“Every day, we fear to lose each other. Being a trans-couple in a transphobic society is hard. We cannot do simple things that a normal couple does. We have no ties with our biological families. Our families abandoned us. For almost four years, we are in a relationship. I feel fragile when I heard how many people are dying from coronavirus (COVID-19). If something happens to my partner, I will not be able to bear the grief.” – Sonia, a 28-year-old transgender woman living with her partner.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“I have learned to love myself in a hard way. Every door I knocked on was closed for me once my identity was revealed. No one wanted me or accept as a woman. When I left home, no one tried to stop me, no one chased me, and no one wanted me to come back home. I was all alone in a city, and it was a strange feeling of not being wanted by anyone. Then I found my community, the people who always stand beside us. They are like me, and they are my original home. But still, my heart bleeds when my past family asks me to go back to them – but as a man. I cannot betray myself,” – Lara, a 23-year-old transwoman who works as a professional dancer.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“Love is a disease. It almost killed me. After seven years in a relationship, my boyfriend disappeared, I searched for him everywhere, but he finally married another woman. He could have told me the truth. Love is not about robbing someone. I was hurt and about to kill myself. It was not because of the betrayal but for the feeling of being unwanted and unloved. I have met many men since then. But none of them conquered my heart. The door of my heart is now closed forever” – Bristy, a 25-year-old transwoman.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“We want to spend our life together; we want to grow old together. Every time I look at his eyes, I know he is my home. Some days it feels hard, but when he holds me tight, I feel we are living in heaven, and the outside world does not exist anymore” – Ash.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“At the age of eleven, I took the longest train ride. I left home to save my parents from social embarrassment. I also left my long-time boyfriend. We have not spoken for eight years or more. A year ago, I first called him during the lockdown in 2020. He picked my call and said, how dare I am to call him. So, I blocked the number and never called again. I am living my life, doing training, and learning new skills every day. I love what I have become, a strong human being. I no longer want to cry; there might be not a single drop left in my eyes to cry for anything. Something big has died a long ago inside me.” – Trisha, a transwoman with her new boyfriend.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“My husband said I am the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. I trust him. Because he deeply loves me. His love has changed my life, healed my wound, and poured my heart. In the past four years, we made a beautiful home together. When he came to our guru to ask my hand, my guru questioned how long he would stay. He said till death and beyond. I never cried in front of him because he could never see me sad. I am a transwoman, I have been through heartache, and I was ridiculed, tortured, and mocked. That is his love that made me believe I am a human being too. Last year my husband went to Kuwait. He wants to build our future; he does not want me to work in a way that could humiliate me in any way. He brought me back to my guru and begged her to keep me safe till he returns. I never knew how beautiful life could be before I met him. His father calls me and visits me with big fish. He calls me daughter-in-law. I have lived all the happiness that was reserved for me in this world. Now I want my husband never to return to me. He should marry a normal girl and have a child of his own. I cannot deprive him more. I have decided to leave. To let him enjoy the life any normal man could live, with no judgment, with a gaggle of small children and respect from the society. The love I already have is enough to spend one life.” – Karishma, a 28-year-old transwoman.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“It could be our last embrace, our last meeting. We might never see each other again. We live with this fear. My partner is leaving for the village. His family asked him to move with them. He has a wife and a child. I do not want to hold him back. But I knew well, no matter how far he stays, he will miss me every time he breathes” – Sakira (25) and Robin (27), a trans-couple in their last embrace.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“Sometimes, I feel like a bird. My feathers fly in the air, so light that it never touches the ground. Or is it my heart that feels like a bird? Yes, my heart moves from place to place, sometimes in transit from present to past. And I have no barrier to cross, neither I had a home to choose. I only stay where my heart wants to belong.” – Konok, a transwoman.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“For us, love is fleeting, temporal, and complicated. Perhaps this is the destiny of a transgender person. Many girls from my group overbreak up to kill their hearts. I have been in love many times. It’s always new, it’s always precious, but it’s always transient. And every time I lose someone I love, I have to accept it. You can never deny the harsh reality of a society where being a transwoman is considered a curse in families. Although there are memories of love and agony that no one can erase, not even I, love is magical” – Lara, a 23-year-old transwoman with her partner.
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

“I grew up in terrible loneliness. I wanted to talk to someone, but no one was there to listen to me. It was about my body and mind. So, I left home knowing well no one will come to take me back. So, I have never lived a normal life. And love has always been a forbidden venture for me.” – Lara, a 23-year-old transwoman, and a professional dancer.
Dhaka, Bangladesh 2021 Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan

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Some of the delegates at the Intergenerational Dialogue of the Asian Parliamentarians and Youth Advocates on Meaningful Youth Engagement. Credit: APDA

By IPS Correspondent
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jul 12 2021 (IPS)

Youth advocates from Asian countries called for an overhaul of a system that excluded young people from participation in policymaking.

During an interaction with parliamentarians from 23 countries, youth representatives considered an enabling political framework to be the most crucial reform required to remove inequities.

More than 100 youth representatives and parliamentarians participated in an Intergenerational Dialogue of the Asian Parliamentarians and Youth Advocates on Meaningful Youth Engagement. The webinar was organised by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and supported by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Y-PEER Asia-Pacific Center.

Hitoshi Kikawada, Secretary-General of Japan Parliamentarians Federation for Population (JPFP), welcomed the delegates at the “innovative” dialogue, which would serve as a platform for “listening to the voices of young people, incorporating the needs of younger people and building a better future.”

Björn Andersson, Regional Director of UNFPA, said the dialogue would give impetus to the sentiment “nothing about us, without us”.

“Too many young people are still being left behind significantly. Inequality and inequities still exist, particularly in education, employment, access to services and political participation,” Andersson said, adding that the impact of COVID-19 had exacerbated the challenges and inequalities.

Migrants, young people in poor urban areas, girls and young women, people with disabilities, members of the LBTQI+ community, and those living with HIV all faced higher exploitation, violence, and mental health issues. They had poor access to health services and protection.

Youth needed to be involved in all stages of policy development, from design, planning, and implementation to evaluation, Andersson said.

Youth representative Situ Shrestha reported the results of a quick survey which showed that more than 50 percent of the respondents said they “not involved in any kind of consultation or dialogue with government at any level.”

She said there was a lack of good platforms for youth engagement, ineffective communication, and often youth did not trust government policies. Only meaningful engagement could reduce these gaps, Shrestha said.

Some of the delegates at the Intergenerational Dialogue of the Asian Parliamentarians and Youth Advocates on Meaningful Youth Engagement. Credit: APDA

Pakistani MP Romina Khursheed Alam said the young parliamentarian forum included members until they were 45 years old.

As lawmakers, there were attempts to ensure youth engagement in the parliamentary process – through internships for university students. She said as a member of the human rights standing committee, she was also concerned about the isolation of the transgender community.

She welcomed an international collaboration and expressed concern about the impacts of COVID-19 protocols, which included lockdowns where the mental health issues became prominent and violence, drugs, and other social problems increased.

Youth representative from Sri Lanka Ram Dulip told the gathering that youth used social media to raise socio-economic issues their communities experienced during the pandemic. He also said COVID-19 demonstrated the leadership potential of young people.

“Not only are they on the frontlines as health workers, but they are also advancing health and safety in their roles as researchers, as activists, as innovators, and as communicators,” Dulip said. Decision-makers should consider this and commit to ensuring youth voices are a part of the solution for a healthier and safer society.

Likewise, Sri Lankan parliamentarian Hector Appuhamy called on countries to use the innovative nature of youth to their economic benefit – and believed the youth parliament would be the most helpful mechanism.

Youth should be involved in critical decision-making Siva Anggita from Indonesia said. This included access to budgets – whether national or district to ensure that programmes for their development were funded.

Anggita was concerned that where young people were included in political participation, it “wasn’t a secret that they come from the privileged backgrounds”.

“So, it is important to make (changes to a) political system that includes all young people. So, all of the young people have the same opportunity,” she said.

Moderator Ayeshwini Lama said the youth survey during the preparatory consultation had confirmed the views expressed and put political reforms as one of the top three recommendations.

Sarah Elago, from the Philippines, expressed concern that while internet connectivity had ensured workers were connected to their work environments, it had some negative connotations, including “digital surveillance and privacy” issues.

However, she commended the youth in the Philippines for their involvement in many projects like community kitchens during the COVID-19 pandemic, which helped “combat hunger and poverty as exacerbated by the massive loss of jobs and livelihoods.”

Youth advocate Fura Sherpa called for a direct connection with policymakers – it was time to ditch the systems where youth were legislated about without being consulted.

“There was no actual participation of youth in creating policy about youth,” Sherpa said, and this needed to change. Policy should be written with direct “actual participation” of the younger community.

The forum called for three main changes – an enabling political framework that involved collaboration and dialogues between governments and young people. Secondly, needs-driven reform with policies reviewed and revised with emerging challenges; and thirdly, inclusiveness in including youth and marginalised groups in decision making.

The dialogue was welcomed by parliamentarians. Ananda Bhaskar Rapulu, an MP from India said the discussion had given him hope because, as lawmakers, they had learnt from the youths’ observations and aspirations.

Mariany Mohammad Yit, a former MP from Malaysia said while there was a National Youth Policy in her country, there was no data to assess its success. She commented that she was not sure the government was serious about youth participation – confirming a dominant theme of day’s debate.

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When Turkish- Norwegian writer and filmmaker Nefise Ozkal Lorentzen heard about Seyran Ates’ mixed gender mosque in Berlin, Germany, she immediately decided to make a film on Seyran’s life. It took three years to produce the film, ‘Seyran Ates: Sex Revolution and Islam’ a portrait of a female Imam and her struggles in activating revolution within Islam.

In an interview given to me, Nefise says, “Gender” was the key concept in her quest into the mystery of Islam as a religion. “Seyran Ates is a very powerful woman, but besides being powerful, she is so real, and I found that so fascinating. This film is a journey through Seyran’s life from her humble beginning as a Muslim girl in Turkey’s slums to a female leader daring to challenge her own religion.

“It took me some time to penetrate through the fortifications of bodyguard protections and the thick walls of media interest in her work and to really bring her into “our living room”. Seyran is one of the most police-protected civilian women in our time. Therefore I chose to portray her as a daughter, sister, mother, aunt and also as a good friend,” says Nefise.

Seyran Ates is a human rights lawyer, founder and imam of the Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque in Berlin, where both men and women pray together, where headscarves are not mandatory and members of the LGBTQI community are welcome. Seyran has been unable to move freely for almost 15 years because of death threats, and has been under police protection from Muslim fundamentalists, turkish-kurdish nationalists and rightwing extremists. One of the main reasons for her attacks, is Seyran’s activism for gender equality and LGBTQI inclusivity in Islam.

“We are living in the 21st century but we are teaching Islam like in the 7th century. Islam needs a sexual revolution,” Seyran says in the film.

Over the past two decades, nefise has produced and directed several documentaries related to Islam. Her trilogy of films entitled, Gender Me (2008), A Balloon for Allah (2011) and Manislam (2014) have covered various topics from islam and homosexuality, women and Islam, power privileges and burdens of masuclinity in Islam and more.

“As a filmmaker, my honesty towards understanding people that I don’t agree with, it gives me an opportunity to build bridges between them and myself. As an artist I have been curious about searching for what is hidden behind reality and how it is interpreted. My cinematographic vision seeks the thin organic lines between reality and memory.

“If Seyran, a girl from the Turkish ghetto in Berlin, becomes the woman who can change the political narrative in Germany, then anyone could make changes in their community. I believe Islam can have a sexual revolution because the youth today can see through it, and they want their freedom, they want to be the drivers of their own lives,” Nefise says.

Nefise’s films have often created a stir because of the topics they has covered, but one can easily say they also opened up discussions, conversations and provided comprehensive treatment to often controversial subject of women, gender, homoseuxality, masculinity in Islam. Religion based social norms and values often go unchallenged and create neverending inequality producing mechanisms, often stemming from deeply rooted patriarchal beliefs.

The struggle in today’s Islamic society is torn between fundamentalists and extremists, often speaking their own narrative or interpretations on Islam and on behalf of Islam, and a pluralist faith which is undergoing its own set of revolutions and changes, most often quietly. “The problem has never been with the text, but with the context.”

By choosing to tell the story of a female Imam living in Germany, Nefise has managed to give a glimpse into the world of revolutionaries, what it takes to not just call for “sexual revolution” in Islam, but also what it takes to stand up for human rights, for gender equality, for LGBTQI rights in conversative and often extremist societies of the world – which are not isolated to just one practise or religion.

Seyran Ates in the film says she does not reject Islam, but she decided to change it from within. The challenge is, can a woman, a woman who fights for inclusivity of the LGBTQI community, who wants men and women to pray together, who believes that women have the right to lead prayers, who is also an Imam, can she act as a bridge between a more compassionate religion and victims of religious extremisms, which also includes racists, white supremists and others.

Reforms take time, and it takes much longer when you are also trying to challenge the given and taught notion of what your religion allows, expects and wants from you. Progressive Islam, in many mainstream Islamic countries is not considered Islam, as it brings about changes and that makes many religious heads uncomfortable. When Seyran Ates as a woman and also as an Imam calls for a sexual revolution within Islam, it definitely triggers Muslim fundamentalists as she has bullet scars to prove that she was attacked for trying to bring these changes.

“It is not only conservative right-wing people who have created many hindrances for progressive Muslim women, but also the left-wing intellectuals who do not dare to take the problems within the Muslim communities seriously. The gender revolution within Islam is highly necessary. I really believe that our film on Seyran Ates will trigger it,” says Nefise.

The author is a journalist and filmmaker based out of New Delhi. She hosts a weekly online show called The Sania Farooqui Show where Muslim women from around the world are invited to share their views. You can follow her on Twitter here.

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Illustration by Inge Snip. Credit: openDemocracy

By Khatondi Soita Wepukhulu
KAMPALA, Jun 30 2021 (IPS)

At Mulago, Uganda’s biggest public hospital, a receptionist at an HIV clinic for marginalised and ‘most at risk’ populations, including LGBT people, said that an undercover reporter’s 17-year-old gay brother could “quit” his same-sex attraction.

“Whoever wants to quit homosexuality, we connect them,” she said – to external counsellors, who have included Pastor Solomon Male, a locally known anti-gay campaigner. She also gave our undercover reporter the phone number of a man who “was once a patient here” and “was once a homosexual but isn’t anymore”.

The USAID aid agency – which says it supports LGBTQI+ inclusive development – gave the Most At Risk Populations Initiative (MARPI) that runs this clinic a $420,000 grant in 2019, ending this September. (It is unclear if any of this money went to this specific clinic.)

It is just one of several examples of health centres in Uganda where our undercover reporters caught staff providing, or providing referrals for, controversial anti-gay ‘therapies’.

Our investigation identified similar support for ‘anti-gay’ counselling activities at three hospitals in the Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau (UCMB) network. This network received more than $1m from USAID between 2019 and this April, though it is unclear whether the specific hospitals identified in this investigation received any of this money.

At one of these hospitals – Nsambya, Uganda’s biggest private health facility – staff referred our reporters to the private office of Cabrine Mukiibi, on the outskirts of Kampala, who mixed Freudian theories, biblical quotes and anti-gay insults in his diagnosis.

Mukiibi, who is also a staff counsellor at Nsambya, stated that sex without procreation “becomes evil” – before recommending what he called “exposure therapy”, telling our undercover reporter to “get a housemaid” that her supposedly gay teenage brother can “get attracted [to]’’, one who is “between 18 and 20 years of age”.

A spokesperson from the US embassy in Kampala, Anthony Kujawa, said that ‘conversion therapy’ goes against “the policy of the United States to pursue an end to violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics”.

In response to questions from openDemocracy, Kujawa explained that US funding for UCMB was supposed to support the capacity of Catholic health facilities involved in HIV and AIDS care. He said: “USAID does not fund or promote anti-LGBTQI+ conversion therapy and will investigate any report that a USAID funded partner is doing so.”

Rosco Kasujja, director of mental health at Makerere University’s school of psychology and head of the Uganda Clinical Psychologists Association, called openDemocracy’s findings “disturbing”. He blamed the lack of a national regulator for psychologists, which could ensure that all patients receive quality care.

“It’s really frustrating that we don’t have any power,’’ he said, in reference to his association’s voluntary and non-binding standards. “People are playing by their own rules and [we] can’t do anything about it.”

‘Extremely unethical’

Globally, more than 65 associations of doctors, psychologists or counsellors have condemned ‘conversion therapy’ practices, according to a 2020 report by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) rights group.

Three countries (Brazil, Ecuador and Malta) have banned these practices – which range from ‘talk therapy’ to physical ‘treatments’ including so-called aversion therapy, while Germany has banned them when applied to minors. Several US states have also passed bans, while the UK recently pledged to do the same nationwide.

Anal sex is illegal in Uganda, and homosexuality is heavily stigmatised. It is unclear how common ‘conversion therapy’ is, but openDemocracy teamed up with local researchers to document the experiences of 20 LGBT Ugandan survivors of such ‘treatments’.

Interviewees said such ‘therapy’ “felt like murder” and that they “suffered depression and anxiety”, drug dependence and suicidal thoughts. Mulago and a hospital in UCMB’s network were among the facilities they named as having provided the treatments.

Godiva Akullo, a feminist lawyer in Kampala, said of those providing ‘conversion’ therapies: “I think it’s extremely unethical behaviour.”

Unregulated therapy

In Kampala, openDemocracy undercover reporters visited three hospitals in the aid-funded UCMB network, looking for ‘treatment’ for same-sex attraction, and were referred to providers of such therapy either within the health facilities or externally.

At Kisubi Hospital’s “youth-friendly” clinic, a counsellor offered a session for 50,000 Ugandan shillings ($14), saying a “17 [year-old] is still a small child we can modify”.

At Lubaga Hospital, Matthias Ssetuba introduced himself as the facility’s “mental health focal person”. He claimed that homosexuality is caused by factors ranging from peer pressure to the internet, and also said that it can be “changed”.

“It is a mental health issue,” he added, “because once you start having sex with the same sex, much as those whites are saying ‘it’s normal’, in our society it’s abnormal. And anything to do with abnormality has something to do with mental health.”

He stressed that a person “has to accept” that they need help “in converting”.

In an email to openDemocracy afterwards, Ssettuba said it was the first time he’d had “such a case at the hospital”, which “has never aided any anti-LGBT conversion therapy”.

“We would only wish to support those who might want to do so at their own will,” he said. He did not reply to further questions about his statements to our undercover reporters.

Homosexuality, said Cabrine Mukiibi (the counsellor referred by Nsambya Hospital) is often caused by “unresolved competition” between a child and a same-sex parent for the attention of an opposite-sex parent during their development’s “phallic stage”.

He wore a label on his coat saying “clinical psychologist” when he met our reporters. He has also been quoted in local media as a “clinical psychologist”.

He said he had just finished (but not yet been awarded) a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Uganda Martyrs University, which is affiliated to the Catholic Church. But this degree is not listed on the university’s website, and Uganda’s higher education regulator told openDemocracy the university is not accredited to offer this programme.

Nsambya Hospital’s director Peter Sekweyama told openDemocracy that Mukiibi is “just offering counselling”, and that he is “trained in something like humanities”.

Kasujja, head of the psychologists’ association, said hospitals have a responsibility to ensure their staff are qualified – but warned that without national regulation of counsellors and psychologists, “there is going to be lots of abuse, […] lots of harm.”

No one from Kisubi Hospital responded to openDemocracy’s requests for comment. UCMB and the HIV clinic at Mulago Hospital also did not respond.

The US embassy in Kampala did not say if USAID funding to UCMB has been renewed.

Noah Mirembe, a human rights lawyer and trans man in Kampala, said that Ugandans who have been harmed by ‘conversion therapy’ practices and are interested in legal redress should contact the Taala Foundation (an organisation he co-directs) for support.

* Additional reporting by Nnanda Kizito Sseruwagi

This story was originally published by openDemocracy

UN officials say they are worried that the achievements in the HIV/AIDS response are uneven and the most vulnerable are at highest risk. They say the new targets are urgently needed. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2021 (IPS)

World leaders, those on the frontlines of the AIDS response, civil society, academics and youth have agreed that there is no way to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 without tackling persistent inequalities among marginalised groups.

The leaders on Tuesday adopted a new set of targets to end the epidemic. Called the Global AIDS Strategy 2021-2026, it builds on the 2016 Political Declaration on Ending AIDS, with more ambitious plans to tackle issues like discrimination and criminalisation of same-sex relations.

“The inequalities blocking progress towards ending AIDS emerge when HIV intersects with complex fault lines across social, economic, legal and health systems,” the agreement states.

It contains pledges to decrease the annual number of new HIV infections to below 370,000 and AIDS-related deaths to 250,000 while eliminating new infections among children.

It sets a 2025 target to end HIV-related discrimination in all forms and to bring life-saving HIV treatment to 34 million people.

UN officials say since the first confirmed case of HIV in 1981 there has been significant progress in understanding and responding to the disease. This includes a 61 percent decrease in AIDS-related deaths since a peak in 2004 and ‘dozens of countries’ meeting or surpassing the targets set out to fast-track AIDS response in the 2016 Declaration.

But they are worried that the achievements are uneven and the most vulnerable are at highest risk. They say the new targets are urgently needed.

“The COVID-19 pandemic, conflict, and humanitarian emergencies, have impeded progress as health systems are placed under immense strain, and critical services and supply chains are disrupted,” said Volkan Bozkir, President of the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly. “Tragically stigma and discrimination persist, further isolating those already marginalised.”

Bozkir told the hybrid event that while all forms of inequality must be eliminated, HIV statistics among young women make a compelling case for prioritising an end to gender inequality.

According to UNAIDS, young women are twice as likely to be living with HIV as young men. In 2020, 6 out of every 7 new HIV infections among young people, aged between 15-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, were girls.

“Every girl and every woman must be free to exercise their fundamental human rights, to make their own decisions, to live a life free from fear of gender-based violence and to be treated with dignity and respect. All girls should have equal access to quality education. This is the foundation for a society where women feel safe to take their rightful place in the workplace, public life, politics, and decision-making,” he said.

Yana Panfilova, a 23-year-old Ukrainian woman who was born with HIV appealed to world leaders to help the millions of people with HIV who struggle daily with fear and isolation.

“Millions of people with HIV may have HIV pills, but they live in a world where their families and their societies do not accept them for who they are. I am here today as the voice of 38 million people living with HIV. For some of us, pills are keeping us alive, but we are dying from the pandemics of stigma, discrimination,” she said.

“The AIDS response is still leaving millions behind. LGBTIQ people, sex workers, people who use drugs, migrants and prisoners, teenagers, young people, women and children who also deserve an ordinary life, with the same rights and dignity enjoyed by most people in this hall.”

The Executive Director of UNAIDS Winnie Byanyima stated that HIV rates are not following the course outlined in the 2016 Agreement and warned that as part of the fall-out from the COVID-19 crisis, it is possible to see a resurgent AIDS pandemic.

“The evidence and analysis are clear. Inequalities in power, status, rights and voice are driving the HIV pandemic. Inequalities kill. As the Global AIDS strategy sets out: to end AIDS, we have to end the inequalities which perpetuate it,” Byanyima said.

The UNAIDS Chief said the world should applaud the new measures to confront the AIDS epidemic, adding that the policies and services needed to end AIDS will prove useful in beating COVID-19 and prepare the world for future pandemics.

“We cannot be neutral on inequalities. To get back on track to ending AIDS, we must be deliberate in confronting them. The only alternative is a vicious cycle of injustice, illness, and emergency. The most unrealistic thing we could do now is to imagine we can overcome our crises through minor adjustments or tinkering.”

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Excerpt:

Credit: Twitter @Dr_Aqsa_Shaikh

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, May 7 2021 (IPS)

When Dr Aqsa Sheikh Tweeted and asked if she was the only transgender person to head a vaccination centre, it seemed extraordinary that in a country with 1.3 billion people, that this could be true.

“Can I lay claim to be the only #Transgender person to head a #Covid #Vaccination Centre in India? Will be very happy to have company of other Trans Folks in this spot,” she wrote on March 3, 2021.

India had turned countless hospitals into COVID-19 vaccination centres – and Sheikh was, and still is, the only transwoman heading one.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Dr Aqsa Sheikh is a proud Muslim transwoman. She is presently living in Delhi and working as the Associate Professor of Community Medicine at Hamdard Institute of Medical Sciences and Research. She is the nodal officer of a COVID-19 Vaccination Center, involved in COVID-19 surveillance, and engaged in vaccine and transmission research. Despite her qualifications even in a pandemic, the idea of a trans-Muslim woman as a doctor defies stereotypes.

“I haven’t faced any active face-to-face discrimination. However, a lot of name-calling on social media is common. In my videos, I get comments of people asking whether I am a man or a woman or why is my voice so masculine,” Sheikh told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an exclusive interview.

“People call us ‘Madarsa chhaap’ (derogatorily referring to being from an Islamic School), ‘Hijras’ (a term sometimes used to refer to trans people in a derogatory manner) and so on.”

When asked how her gender identity affects her daily professional interactions, especially during the pandemic, Sheikh says that often “our stories and our identity travel to people before us”, so people look at her through many lenses.

The intersections of her identity are many, Muslim, transgender, woman, leader, health activist.

She credits two aspects of her life for saving her from stigmatisation often experienced in the trans community. Firstly, a lot of time has passed since she transitioned, and secondly, she is in a position of privilege where she is a provider rather than someone who is seeking the service. Both these make her less of a target for discrimination.

Coming out as a trans woman, however, has not been an easy task for Dr Sheikh.

When she broke the news to her family that she was a transwoman, there was anger, denial, and rebuttal.

She says she understands that for a family which has never had exposure to a transgender person, to accept that someone they have raised as a boy for 20 years now says and affirms that they are a woman was difficult to accept. The transition, which involved surgical and legal transitions, met with increased resistance because she came from a conservative Muslim background.

“While my mother stays with me, the rest of the family is not very comfortable affirming these familial bonds, but then you can’t get everything in life,” Sheikh says. “I am happy that I have been able to do what I wanted to do despite all the opposition from society, and that’s what matters at the end of the day.”

Sheikh also emphasises there is a lot of homophobia within the Muslim community, like most communities. Still, she believes that acceptance of trans and intersex people is a little better, especially for those who transition.

The most important thing, according to Sheikh, is to be comfortable with oneself and be secure in the knowledge that she is not doing anything wrong.

“When I was confident that I was right, what I am doing is not wrong or anti-religion, then I was able to talk more about it, I was able to convince more people about it, I was able to break down more walls,” she says.

According to Sheikh, the intersectionality of identities at play and understanding them is also imperative.

“You are not just a Muslim person, or just a queer person, just a doctor. You are not just a woman or just an Indian. You are all of them together,” she says. “So, I, for example, do not only speak on the transgender issues, but I also speak on the different issues of the Muslim community. I speak on the issues faced by the Kashmiri Muslims, those faced by the patients while receiving healthcare irrespective of whether they are cis (assigned and identify with a gender given at birth) or trans.”

She feels once people see you as someone who understands intersectionality (the interconnectedness of aspects of race, class, gender, and religion), acceptance increases.

The transgender community is highly vulnerable, says Sheikh and accessing general, COVID-19, or transition-specific healthcare is challenging.

“With COVID-19 and then the subsequent national lockdowns, the number of service providers available for providing services to the trans persons saw a decrease,” Sheikh says. “During such times, the stigmatisation also always increases because one is looking for scapegoats.”

She says the blame for transmission is often placed on minority groups, like the Tablighi Jamaat or trans persons.

Mental health services, which are a privilege for any person in India to afford, became difficult to access during the pandemic.

“Especially (difficult) when it came to queer-affirmative mental healthcare and counselling. The pandemic has been a tough and challenging time for the trans community with so many losing their traditional livelihood measures,” Sheikh says.

With all the challenges that the present pandemic brings with it, she continues with her activism.

Apart from her professional medical engagements, she runs an NGO called Human Solidarity Foundation.

“We started a charitable clinic in Zakir Nagar this year. With the second wave of COVID-19, apart from distributing food kits and other work, we are doing a teleconsultation and also helping out people with COVID-19 resources,” she says.

Sheikh’s education was funded by Zakaat Funds (money to be compulsorily given by Muslims for charitable causes), and it’s her dream that the potential of children is not lost because of lack of resources. Eradication of hunger, health and education for all, sensitisation and awareness are her goals.

“I am not sure whether we can achieve these in my lifetime, but that’s what I really look forward to.”

Mariya Salim is a fellow at IPS UN Bureau

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By Mandeep Tiwana
NEW YORK, Jan 19 2021 (IPS)

Two events generated significant interest and global solidarity in the final days of December 2020. A court in Saudi Arabia handed down a five years and eight months sentence to activist Loujain Al-Hathloul for publicly supporting women’s right to drive. Nicholas Opiyo, Ugandan human rights lawyer and defender of persecuted members of the LGBTQI community and political opponents of the president was arbitrarily detained on trumped up charges of ‘money laundering.’ Nicholas Opiyo was granted bail on 30 December following an outpouring of global support for his activism for justice. In handing out the verdict to Loujain Al-Hathloul, the court partly suspended her sentence raising hope that she might be released from prison in a couple of months due to time already served.

As we await the release of Loujain Al-Hathloul and an end to judicial harassment of Nicholas Opiyo it’s notable that their struggles for justice are not unlike those of Sudha Bharadwaj, general secretary and voice of conscience of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties in Chhattisgarh, India or that of Teresita Naul, sixty-three year old committed advocate for health and social services in the Philippines. In Honduras, the Guapinol Water Defenders exposing harmful mining activities should have been receiving a national award. Instead, like Nicaraguan economic justice activist Maria Esperanza Sanchez Garcia and their fellow human rights defenders above, they’re languishing in prison.

It’s an anathema that in the 21st century when humanity claims to have made great progress in cultural and technological spheres that we should still have prisoners of conscience. The right to a fair trial and due process under the law are part of customary international law. Yet, around the world, thousands of rights defenders are wrongfully imprisoned following flawed trials for their peaceful efforts to create just, equal and sustainable societies. It’s no secret that public spirited work that exposes wrongdoing by the powerful or seeks justice for the excluded has become exceedingly dangerous in the past few years. This trend bears out in democracies, dictatorships and in countries with hybrid regimes.

In December last year, the CIVICUS Monitor – a participatory research platform that tracks enabling conditions for the work of human rights defenders globally – released its annual People Power Under Attack report. The findings reveal that 87 percent of the world’s population live in countries with poor civic space conditions. Civic space is the bedrock of open and democratic societies. It’s predicated on the ability of concerned individuals and civil society groups to organise, participate and communicate without hindrance to actively shape the social, political and economic structures around them.

Struggles for justice and rights hinge on the free exercise of civic freedoms of association, peaceful assembly, and expression recognised by international law and are included in the bill of rights of almost every country. Nonetheless, over a quarter of people live in countries that have completely ‘closed’ civic space where conditions are so terrible that those who express dissent and defend rights are routinely imprisoned, injured or killed. The list of such countries is long and forbidding, stretching from China to Cuba.

One might expect a momentous event like a pandemic which has caused huge amounts of suffering to open the doors for more compassionate governance. But the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have accelerated negative civic space trends. Our research shows that several governments have ramped up censorship and surveillance of human rights defenders to suppress criticism when they should have been prioritising access to information and making space for open and constructive dialogue with civil society.

In too many places, activists fighting for things as basic as equality before the law or women’s rights over their bodies or free and fair elections are being arbitrary imprisoned and subjected to the full force of the law and more for peaceful acts of civil disobedience. In the past few years, people’s mobilisations against leaders with authoritarian tendencies in places as diverse as Belarus and Uganda have been met with unusual cruelty.

Yet, people power managed to force a constitutional referendum in 2020 to make Chile an economically fairer place, and made futile a president’s attempt to unconstitutionally hold on to power in Malawi. In the United States, a historical reckoning with racist law enforcement through the Black Lives Matter protests helped bring out the vote in record numbers and defeat a delinquent president in the elections. In the final days of 2020, Argentina passed legislation to legalise abortion following years of determined activism by advocates for women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Presently, a huge peaceful mobilisation is taking place by farmers and their supporters on the outskirts of India’s capital, Delhi against hurriedly drawn up legislation that supports big business interests and was pushed through parliament without adequate consultation and debate. Illustratively, the country’s present government which has shown scant respect for democratic norms is already trying to paint the protestors as ‘misguided’ or acting at the behest of outside forces.

In the end people power needs public support to counter vilification and criminalisation of rights defenders. The cost of repression is enormous for both the persecuted individuals and their loved ones. It took 27 years of people’s mobilisations and international pressure to secure Nelson Mandela’s release from apartheid prisons. It doesn’t have to be the same for Buzurgmeher Yoruv, a Tajik human rights lawyer who’s presently serving a 22 year sentence for defending members of the political opposition in his country.

Global solidarity did help secure the release of intrepid rights defender and advocate for the democratic rights of the Bahraini people, Nabeel Rajab in June last year. Just before Christmas, the IWACU4 Burundian journalists who were imprisoned merely for their investigative reporting on security matters following a flawed trial were granted a pardon. Nevertheless, the struggle for the release of other prisoners of conscience continues.

Even if the cascading impact of civic space restrictions seems heavy today, history shows us that another way is possible through the manifestation of people power. It’s vital not to forget the sacrifices of those who fight for our rights and are persecuted for their pursuit of justice. Let’s hope 2021 will be a better year for them. We all have a responsibility to act in the spirit of global solidarity to remove this collective blot on our humanity.

Mandeep Tiwana is chief programmes officer at CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance. To learn more about CIVICUS’s #StandAsMyWitness campaign to free imprisoned human rights defenders, click here. The People Power Under Attack 2020 report can be accessed here.

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A mother homeschools her children in Shamva district, Zimbabwe, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 10,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa; Zimbabwe and South Sudan among most vulnerable. Credit: WFP/Tatenda Macheka

By Kundhavi Kadiresan
WASHINGTON DC, Dec 18 2020 (IPS)

Africa, compared to Asia, Europe and the US, has largely escaped the devastating death toll of COVID-19, accounting for a fraction of the world’s 63 million cases.

Instead, the continent has been uniquely affected by the pandemic’s impact on food supply chains, revealing underlying vulnerabilities that threaten to bring a different crisis and leaving the spectre of famine looming over several African countries.

As donors, NGOs and research organisations rally to support governments in preventing a rise in extreme hunger and poverty, we have an opportunity to transform Africa’s food systems for the better at a time when the entire world has reached an inflection point for the sustainability of food systems.

In tackling the secondary impacts of the pandemic, Africa can build greater resilience to global shocks, leapfrogging other regions by reconfiguring a food system that the continent – and the world – has long since outgrown.

This could provide a blueprint for other regions and countries in the run-up to a milestone UN summit in 2021 and help the rest of the world to leverage food and agriculture for better health, climate action and opportunities for equality.

Such a roadmap should start by recognising that the diet, nutrition and health of a population underpins all other indicators of progress and prosperity.

With this in mind, agriculture should be situated at the heart of any national or regional strategy for development and economic growth.

Since it was launched in 2003, the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) has set out clear targets for agriculture as a driver of other goals and includes more than 40 countries among its signatories.

As of 2015, public spending on agriculture across Africa under CAADP had increased by more than seven per cent a year to support more and better livelihoods, stronger food security and greater resilience.

It also provides a clear, shared vision around which partners, such as agricultural research networks like CGIAR, can unite to play their part.

Such an integrated, coordinated approach, both between governments and partners, will be essential in delivering the next decade of the programme to accelerate the transformation of African agriculture.

But while a high-level framework like CAADP is crucial for bringing together partners in pursuit of common goals, each country, district and neighbourhood will also need solutions appropriate to their specific contexts.

The world may be connected by its common need to produce sufficient healthy food in a sustainable way, but the means through which this is achieved varies enormously according to social and environmental factors.

Developing more innovations that fit geographical needs will allow food systems to be more responsive, adaptive and impactful.

Over the last 20 years, for example, CGIAR has developed 52 separate innovations across sustainable livestock, crop breeding and natural resource management in Ethiopia alone. By tailoring them to the specific challenges faced by smallholders, women and youth, these solutions have reached an estimated 11 million rural households.

Going forward, initiatives like the Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program, led by CGIAR and funded by the African Development Bank, will integrate expertise from across research areas to continue to scale up the uptake of appropriate new technologies.

Working in 30 countries, TAAT is forecast to increase raw food production by 120 million tons per year, helping to lift about 40 million people out of poverty, by focusing on national needs across different crops and livestock, and different challenges from crop pests to soil fertility.

Finally, in reforming agriculture, Africa has the opportunity to address systematic and long-term inequality, particularly when it comes to gender inequality.

Women in Africa continue to carry out around 40 per cent of agricultural labour yet their frequent exclusion from financial services, land rights and equal opportunities for training holds back Africa’s agricultural development.

CGIAR’s COVID-19 Hub enables researchers to work collectively, while also drawing lessons learned from research across the CGIAR System that can both support the pandemic recovery, and also identify opportunities to close the gender gap.

For example, one study demonstrates the challenges women livestock keepers faced compared to men as a result of a shortage of livestock feed during the pandemic, and offered solutions that could unlock the potential of women, building resilience not only for women but also for their families and their communities.

Arguably, if research into the connected relationship between human, animal and environmental health had been better funded, the world may not be facing today’s COVID-19, health and hunger crisis.

But if there is one lesson to learn, it should be that investing now in agricultural research could help prevent the next disaster, in Africa and around the world.

It is clear now that the needs of a 21st century food system stretch further than ever, and we must rise to the challenge of redesigning a food system for Africa itself and by Africa for the world.

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Excerpt:

COVID-19 has in some nations been converted into a noxious, political issue. One of many worrying examples is the rhetoric of Brazil´s president. On 10 November, when Brazil´s COVID-19 death toll surpassed 162,000 victims – the numbers have continued to raise and are now 179,032 second only to USA´s 296,745 – Jair Bolsonaro minimized the effects of COVID-19 by stating: ”All of us are going to die one day. There is no point in escaping from that, in escaping from reality. We have to cease being a country of sissies.” Bolsonaro actually said maricas, which like sissies is slang for gay people. Both expressions originally indicated ”small girls” – marica is a diminutive of Maria and sissy of “kid sister”. Bolsonaro thus defined homosexuality as effeminacy by associating gay men with affectation and cowardice. By connecting disease, fear, and femininity the Brazilian president not only ignored the strength and courage women throughout history have demonstrated by enduring childbirths and caring for others, it also shows a strong disregard for gender equality and the rights of women and gay people.

In several countries, gender equality has made progress in areas as education and labour force participation, though health inequality between women and men continues to plague several societies, where girls and women remain victims to ideologies and practices that make them more vulnerable than men to diseases originating from neglect, abuse, and mistreatment. Furthermore, women and girls are often subjected to physicians´ bias in diagnosis and treatment, while restricted access to education and remunerated work may hinder them from accessing adequate health services.

In most societies, women have been considered as subordinate to men. In both art and medicine, women have been viewed and interpreted from a “male point of view”. That a “male gaze” applies to how women’s bodies are perceived became evident to me when I sometime in the eighties read Edward Shorter’s A History of Women’s Bodies. Shorter described how religion and medicine have discriminated against women, primarily by disregarding their physical and mental health.

I had Shorter’s book in memory when I several years ago visited the Andean highlands and interviewed women about their life situation. What then upset me was the deplorable state of health of the women I met, assuming that it was my collaboration with a midwife that made them reveal physical pain and problems. Several diseases originated in difficulties during pregnancies, often experienced too early in life, and after that being far too frequent. Ailments related to the female body was burdened by prejudice, chauvinism, and religious bigotry and thus considered as shameful and concealed. My encounter with these women made me realize that gender equality is not exclusively a matter of relations between men and women – physical differences between the sexes must also be taken into account and addressed.

Through its intent to connect fear of COVID-19 infection with cowardice and effeminacy, Bolsonaro´s rhetoric not only reveals an inclination towards homophobia and misogyny, but furthermore demonstrates a lack of knowledge about the crucial role women have had in medical development. While being professionally engaged with gender issues, I have quite often been confronted with a view that almost exclusively emphasizes social injustices caused by male chauvinism. Of course, this is a serious problem that cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, this should not allow forgetting the fact that women’s bodies are distinctive from men’s. Neglect of women’s unique physical constitution has during centuries caused unnecessary suffering and limited
women´s well-being.

Childbirth is a unique female experience that excludes men, who cannot experience the pains and dangers it may bring about. Since time immemorial, childbirth has almost exclusively affected women – the expectant mother, the midwife, women friends and relatives. Men were generally excluded from the process. What midwives lacked in formal, academic learning, they compensated through experience and ancient traditions,

With the emergence of an academically founded medical profession and with it an increased interest in the income-generating business of midwifery, male doctors became during the 19th century increasingly interested in obstetrics and generally opposed to midwifery. Before male interventions, women generally gave birth in partially upright positions, being supported by other women. One reason for this was that giving birth was considered to be a social concern, as well as the technique facilitated the process for both mother and midwife since they could make use of gravity. However, male obstetricians preferred that women, while giving birth, remained in bed. Accordingly, obstetricians were in France, and the rest of Europe, called accouchers, from the French á coucher, go to bed.

It was claimed that surgeons were better trained in scientific medicine than midwives, who relied on popular medical traditions. In several countries, midwives were gradually legislated against in favour of male doctors. In his book, Shorter argued that increasingly male-dominated obstetrics initially were detrimental, causing unnecessary inconvenience and suffering. Furthermore, apart from facilitating the actual birth procedure, midwives also offered support and help during pregnancy and aftercare. They were generally, unlike men, mothers themselves and could thus consider ailments and dangers from a female perspective. Several of them were also knowledgeable about how to alleviate labour pains and how to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and in some cases, even experienced in abortions. The midwives were thus through their own and collective experiences well acquainted with how a female body functioned and reacted to various types of interventions.

The suppression of women midwifery is just one of many examples of how women systematically have been marginalized while healing and caring for the sick and injured. This does not mean that their care-giving has not been decisive. On the contrary, to take care of others has rather been considered as a female duty, even part of a feminine nature. A perception that meant women’s role in healthcare was taken for granted and they were offered neither education, nor payment. In Catholic Europe it was until quite recently, nonsalaried nuns who took care of the sick and were assumed to gain their knowledge through practice.

Well into the twentieth century, doctors were almost exclusively men and nurses were subordinate to them in everything (up to 1955 men were not allowed to serve as nurses in the US Army). In addition, nurses were paid significantly less than a medical doctor. Men in white were, and generally still are, considered as hospital royalty. Something still manifested through several hospitals’ big rounds when the chief physician, accompanied by doctors-in-training, visit bedridden patients, while female nurses discreetly remain in the background.

It was not until the bloody massacres of 19th century warfare that female nurses gained a greater role and nursing schools were established to train them in health care. However, education was mostly hospital-based and had well into the twentieth century an emphasis on practical experience. During the last century, wars continued to improve women´s position in healthcare. During World War I, nurses were integrated into the war effort, and during World War II warring nations established units with trained nurses. For example, the Nazis, who otherwise were reluctant to engage women in the war industry, recruited more than 40,000 nurses for their armies.

The recent rapid development of medical science is probably the most impressive human success story ever. It has not only been beneficial to human well-being, it has also contributed to increased compassion and reduced the brutality of everyday life. This development would probably not have been initiated without attention to women’s health. Due to immense pain and risk of fatal infections, surgical procedures were during millennia limited to superficial interventions, as well as amputations and trepanning. It was through male obstetric care that breakthroughs in concern for sterility took place. The first steps towards the discovery of the role of bacteria and viruses in infections occurred in 1846 when the Austrian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweiss discovered that more women died in maternity wards staffed with male surgeons, than those cared for by female midwives. Semmelweiss traced the cause to increased mortality to male medical students not washing their hands after dissecting corpses. Although Semmelweis’ sanitary recommendations were largely ignored and he himself was driven to madness, he is now recognized as a pioneer in aseptics and the prevention of hospital-acquired infections.

The presence of male doctors at birth made them realize the immense pain caused by disturbed nerve pathways and made them pursue more effective anesthetics. Advances that, together with aseptics, finally enabled surgical interventions inside the body. It was during a birth in Edinburgh in 1847 that James Young Simpson used chloroform anesthesia and, after the same method in 1853 had been used when Queen Victoria gave birth to Prince Leopold, anesthesia spread around the world. After Robert Koch in 1879 beyond any doubt had established that infections are spread by bacteria, and in 1881 introduced heat sterilization of all surgical instruments, medical science would never be the same again.

Accordingly, to label general health as a concern for “maricas” is not only a sign of ridiculous machismo, but also a manifestation of profound ignorance. When Jair Bolsonaro equaled “fear of COVID-19” with effeminacy he demonstrated contempt for the bravery and professionalism homosexual men have demonstrated as physicians and nurses, as well as he demeaned women who through centuries have combated sickness and fatal injuries, as well as caring for home and family and enduring painful births. On top of that, Bolsonaro revealed a profound ignorance of the fundamentals of modern, medical science and its foundations on women´s well-being.

Sources: https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-54902608 and Shorter, Edward (1984) A History of Women’s Bodies. London: Pelican Books.

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

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Indian member of parliament and actor, Nusrat Jahan has also been targeted.

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Oct 23 2020 (IPS)

When a minority woman with an opinion doesn’t comply with stereotypes, she is targeted with online hate, says award-winning journalist and senior editor at The Wire, Arfa Khanum Sherwani in an exclusive interview with Inter Press Service.

Sherwani has been at the receiving end of online violence and hate, including rape and death threats, like her other women journalist counterparts, because she questions policies and performance of the present Indian government. What makes her experience of facing gendered and sexist online abuse different is the added layer of her identity: that of being a Muslim.

“The right-wing in India, like everywhere else in the world, likes to put certain communities in boxes. Muslim women are supposed to dress a certain way, speak a certain language or perhaps not speak at all. As a Muslim woman, with an opinion who does not fit their imaginary stereotypes, they use violence against me online,” Sherwani says. “When the trolls question my journalism, they make sure to question my religion and make the majority community look at my work through the lens of my religion alone to discredit my work.”

Arfa Khanum Sherwani, award-winning journalist and editor, finds her religion highlighted in online hate campaigns.

India has an ever-growing percentage of internet users and the various social media platforms act as a window for India’s marginalised communities to be able to express their opinions, seek an audience and build community.

Where on the one hand the internet has enabled participation in the public sphere with greater ease for marginalised groups, the increasing amount of online hate and violence, especially against women from these communities, has left them feeling vulnerable and, in many situations, threatened with physical harm.

The violence exacerbates when those with an opinion online identify themselves as women from a religious, racial or ethnic minority, or the LGBTQIA community.

In India, the increasing Islamophobia and violence against its largest religious minority, Muslims, is mirrored in the virtual spaces as well. Women from the Muslim community are targeted explicitly with slurs and sexist abuse, directed towards their religious identity.

Nabiya Khan, a 24-year-old Muslim poet and activist, is threatened online for her headscarf and Muslim identity than for her activism.

Nabiya Khan, a 24-year-old Muslim poet and activist, endured threats online.

“Some call me Jahil Jihadan (meaning illiterate terrorist, with the word terrorist here having an Islamic connotation), others ask me to remove my headscarf and then speak up against any kind of social injustice. I am often asked to go to Pakistan accompanied by rape threats of the most vile kind.”

It is not only those who are on the platforms who are targets. The spreading of false news narratives against minorities, mostly religious and caste oppressed minorities like Muslims, Christians and Dalits has often led to women from these communities, even if far removed from these platforms, at the receiving end of real-life harm.

Sexual violence against women is a tool to humiliate and punish the broader community and strip it of its honour and integrity.

In 2013, for instance, a fake video depicting Hindu boys being brutally killed by a Muslim mob, posted on the Facebook page of a Minister from a right-wing party, went viral. The post led to massive communal riots in Muzaffarnagar, in Uttar Pradesh during which scores of women from the Muslim community were raped.

Seven years later there has not been a single conviction in any of the reported cases.

The video was removed. However, it had stayed on the platform long enough for Muslim women in a village in rural India to experience irreparable harm.

A post written by Nabiya after she received rape and death threats on Facebook.

International human rights organisations, like the United Nations, have also taken cognisance of the growing vitriol online, with the office of the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, Dr Fernand de Varennes having made “hate speech, social media and minorities” a thematic priority at the start of his mandate.

De Varennes, in an interview with IPS, was particularly concerned about the effect of hate speech on minority women.

“To reduce what is occurring online as strictly only a matter of gender, exacerbated and normalised by hate speech in social media, is to hide the significant role of religion and caste which contribute to the specific continuing and even increasing stigmatisation of minority women,” he said.

He added that raising awareness of the extent to which hate speech had become a mainly minority issue had become one of his main tasks for this year.

The “disease of the mind”, he says, that constitutes hate speech may pile up, with misogynist attacks against minority women finding fertile grounds to propagate, since it becomes “more acceptable” for some to spew hatred against women who belong to supposedly “despised minorities”.

The intersectionality of online violence against women needs, therefore, to be acknowledged.

Nusrat Jehan, an actor and Indian Member of Parliament, has received online threats and violence for her career and personal choices both from within and outside the community.

“I keep on getting judgements, fatwas, death threats, etc. from religious extremist groups,” says Nusrat, a public representative. She had to seek additional personal security while in the UK after receiving online threats for posing as a Hindu Goddess on her Instagram page in September this year.

“I do not pay heed to the trolls and their judgments. Yes, there need to be stricter laws for account creation etc. on these platforms, but whatever be the rules and laws, things won’t change until mindsets change,” she adds.

Social media companies need to take the violence faced by women on their platforms more seriously and proactively block and take down harmful content.

Reports by some CSOs have brought to light how “Facebook lacks clear user hate speech reporting mechanisms for Indian caste-oppressed minorities” and how despite a year-long advocacy with the company, nothing changed at their front.

The experience of many women, from marginalised communities, concerning the reporting of hate online on these platforms, whether Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, has been far from satisfactory. Many of the women have had their accounts taken down for revealing the identities of their abusers.

India does not have laws specifically dedicated to dealing with online violence against women, let alone those that are specific to women from religious and caste oppressed minorities.

Experts point out that what is needed is the implementation of existing cyber laws in India rather than the introduction of new ones.

Khanum points out that she has little trust in the law enforcement mechanisms and therefore refrains from reporting it to the authorities. One of the factors of this mistrust is her fear that, because she is Muslim, her concerns will not be treated seriously. What concerns her is the impunity – where a great deal of hate directed towards her comes from the verified social media handles of people in positions of power, political and otherwise.

YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/jdMNT5pqrHc

The writer is a Fellow at IPS UN Bureau

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Fast fashion consumes vast resources, often polluting and devastating the natural world. Pictured here are garment workers in Bangladesh. Credit: Obaidul Arif/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2020 (IPS)

Racism “keeps the global north oblivious to the effect of fast fashion addiction on the global south” say environmental and gender justice experts.

Organisers and activists came together last week to discuss how the fast fashion industry sits at the intersection of environmental and gender justice. The industry, which discriminates against women from the production cycle to the consumption of it, contributes to environmental degradation as two million tonnes of textile are discarded every year.

Beyond that, fashion also plays a crucial role for people of different genders to express themselves, panelists said at the United Nations General Assembly event “Subversive Catwalk: Women, Fast Fashion & Climate Justice”.

“We hoped to encourage people to look at the connection between women’s oppression – the pressure to look good, to be fashionable, that their bodies are not good enough – and the oppression of women worldwide in the garment sweatshops of the world,” Su Edwards, organiser of the panel, told IPS.

“We wanted to raise awareness of the vast resources consumed by fast fashion and the resulting pollution and devastation of the natural world,” she added.

The panel shed light on the importance of women from the global north creating a bridge to work in solidarity with women in the global south.

“We are very keen to emphasise the unity between groups that are often seen as having divergent interests,” Edwards said. “Fashion is a good place for women to find common interests and to begin to understand that their life choices may impact on their sisters in other places.”

The panel, however, lacked the presence of any Bangladeshi representative on the conversation of the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 1,100 garment workers. Scores of garment workers were injured in the disaster, sparking off a massive global conversation on garment workers’ rights.

The only representative invited to speak about the issue was Sumedha Shivdas, a fashion designer  from India.

“We wanted to include at least one woman from the global south in our panel and Sumedha is part of our organisation,” Edwards said when this issue was addressed. “The point was that she had heard about the Rana Plaza disaster but was numb about it.”

On environment, panelists stated that it takes 12 years to get rid of waste that fast fashion makes in 24 hours.

Beyond environmental concerns, fashion also has a large role to play in one’s identity. One of the highlights of the panel was Josephine Carter, a queer artist-activist and panel member who spoke about the role fashion plays on the intersection of environmental justice, human rights, and identity. 

For Carter, identity is at the center of her activism. She is currently working on a poetry project honouring black men for Black History month in the United Kingdom.

“This work feels deeply relevant at the moment, as we’re once again reminded of how endangered black lives are, and of the particular forces of white supremacy which work to endanger black men particularly,” she told IPS.

This relevance is further deepened by the environmental concerns around the world.

“I am thinking, writing and working my way towards climate activism, and finding a way to make this inextricable with the activism work I already do, on race, gender, sex and class,” she said.

For the panel talk, her aim was to have her message reach women and have them engaged in the conversation on climate crisis, and for them to realise how urgent and relevant it is to their lives.
Another goal for her, as well as that of the workshop’s, was to convey the message that for activists, their emotions are very intricately linked with doing the work of climate justice. Understanding that link, and figuring out which measures work and what needs improvement, can help unlock opportunities for climate justice initiatives that are effective.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Inter Press Service (IPS): What role has fashion played for you in your identity?

Josephine Carter (JC): As a queer woman of colour, I got to explore how people with my identities get pushed in two different directions – to use fashion and dress as self-expression, or to use fashion and dress as a way to conform to a heteronormative and cisnormative society. Not only do big feelings about ourselves and our bodies come up as a result, there are also real-world consequences to conforming or not conforming.

IPS: The intersection of fast fashion, environment and the queer community aren’t usually examined together. What does this intersection tell society?

JC: The reality is that over consuming fast fashion clothing, either to stand out or to fit in, doesn’t come without environmental consequences. Once we accept that the ecologically degrading and exploitative fast fashion industry can’t be allowed to continue, for the sake of the planet and its people, we then have to reconsider our relationship to clothes and reckon more closely with the presence of homophobia and transphobia in our lives.

As mentioned in the workshop, a part of the work of achieving climate justice is the elimination of all oppressions. Bringing together the topics of fashion, environment and queerness (or other identities) shows that the climate crisis actually permeates all areas of our lives and experiences, even areas that might seem unrelated at first glance. It goes, I hope, a little way towards demonstrating that there are a thousand reasons for every person alive to be active in the fight for climate justice, including people who usually get left out of the climate movement.

IPS: What role do you believe fashion plays a role for queer and gender non-conforming communities?

JC: Experiences with fashion in queer and gender non-conforming communities are as diverse as the communities themselves. While I can’t speak for these communities as a whole – especially as a cisgender queer woman – I notice that fashion provides an opportunity for self-creation, for queer and trans people to reclaim their bodies from oppression and dysphoria. Because clothing is so gendered, it can be a useful tool for exploring and subverting the gender binary. It can also be an outlet for creativity, self-expression and sheer joy in queer lives which are so often marred by interpersonal and systematic homophobia and transphobia – from workplace discrimination to homelessness, from medical mistreatment to hate-motivated violence.

IPS: What other roles does fashion play in this conversation?

JC: Conversely, fashion can also play a role in keeping queer and trans identities hidden, especially when individuals have to conform to heteronormative and cisnormative gender roles because of an oppressive family environment, community or government. The necessity to stay hidden and the harshness of the punishment of visibly queer and trans people increases as homophobia and transphobia overlap with other systems of discrimination such as race, class and disability.

IPS: How has your identity as a queer person shaped your relationship with fashion?

JC: I use clothing to announce my queer identity and to hide it. Some of the pressure that is put on heterosexual women to look “feminine” and attractive according to our culture’s norms actually passes me by, and I love putting myself out in public as a weird, fat, butch, boxy, short, black queer woman when I wear dungarees, Doc Martens, men’s clothing, and the rainbow flag. It works as a way to signal to other people in the LBGTQ community that I’m here, that we see each other, that I stand in solidarity with a queer aesthetic and heritage.

I also sometimes get slurs yelled at me on the street, have disparaging comments made about my body by strangers, and am generally made aware that I don’t look how a woman “should” look. It’s interesting that the defining aesthetic categories for queer women, butch and femme, separate us out into who “looks like a woman” and who doesn’t. I remember many occasions as a teenager and young adult where I have tried and failed to look feminine, attractive and acceptable.

I use fashion as a way of constructing my queer identity, and fashion constantly reminds me that society’s idea of what’s acceptable for women’s lives is still very narrow.

Kazakhstan's anti-gender bill aims for the complete erasure of concepts of gender and gender equality, according to rights activists. Courtesy: CC by 2.0/Steve Evans

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 10 2020 (IPS)

 The coronavirus lockdown in Kazakhstan, and the resultant limited public oversight and limited publication engagement, has paved the way for the government to propose amendments to the country’s laws around gender that could see the exclusion of the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ)  community. 

Aigerim Kamidola, Legal Advocacy Officer, ‘Feminita’ Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative in Kazakhstan, spoke to IPS this week after presenting her organisation at the Jul. 9 United Nations panel on sustainable development for LGBTI people in times of COVID19. She was one of a group of advocates from around the world who shared their opinions and experiences about how the community has been affected during the crisis. 

She explains how the period of the lockdown was used for “the introduction of amendments and additions to legislative acts of Kazakhstan on family and gender policy”.

“The Draft Law (an anti-gender bill) proposes amendments to the law on state guarantees on equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women. The anti-gender bill aims for the complete erasure of concepts of gender and gender equality. The only outcome of the bill is to erase the word “gender” from the national legislation,” Kamidola says.

“And through the comments of some MPs initiating this legislation, we see that the rationale they provided was that there are “too many genders” and that they have the intention to reinstate two sexes.”

But Kamidola points out “the general public discourse in Kazakhstan is very homophobic and transphobic”.

“On a state-level the subject is a taboo so state officials normally do not speak of it.”

Her organisation works with lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer (LBTQ) women on issues of discrimination and hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity in Kazakhstan.

Inter Press Service (IPS): How has COVID-19 impacted the LBTQ community in Kazakhstan?  

Aigerim Kamidola (AK):  We’ve seen two main trends in Kazakhstan regarding LBTQ populations: first one is that the general measures, policies and legislations [around] the state’s response to COVID-19 pandemic didn’t take the intersectional approach at the core of it. As a result, they exacerbated the pre-existing inequalities that disproportionately affected LGBTQ people.

The second trend is measures that specifically target civil society and LGBTQ groups. Despite [the fact] that there was a state of emergency and the quarantine, when there was limited public oversight and civic and social engagement, the parliament and the government actually used the space to adopt certain legislation which actually targeted civil society groups.

IPS: What are some ways in which COVID-19 has affected the health of the members of the LBTQ community in Kazakhstan?

AK: With our allies from transgender initiatives, Feminita completed a big research project on access to healthcare of LBQ women and trans people in Kazakhstan in March. Because of the stigma by medical professionals, there’s a high resentment of the LBQT community for [asking for] medical help and that increases health risks. It’s not only HIV or STIs, which are normally spoken of, but also for other chronic disease and cancer-related diseases.

As a result, it makes the group of people more susceptible to health risks [in the event of a] pandemic or other epidemiological diseases.

IPS: Your organisation was denied registration as an NGO last year — how does this affect your ability to operate in the country and to serve the LBTQ community?

AK: We recently received the supreme court decision upholding the previous court rulings, confirming that there was no violation in a denied registration. And it surely affects the organisation’s institutional development because as a non-registered organisation, you’re not eligible to open a bank account, or apply for funding and hence [unable] to maybe be more effective in responding to some urgent calls. 

As a result, the initiative operates with a small group of people — most of them work other jobs on the side. And they cannot pay the initial salaries, or operate sustainably or have sustainable activities. And that of course exacerbates in the pandemic. 

On the other side, we see a contraction of funding too and it is [being] channelled towards the needs of pandemic response or healthcare needs. Then there’s a contraction of resources to activists and civil society groups and human rights organisations needs. We know that it’s just the beginning and that the financial effects of the pandemic will catch up later.  

IPS: Has the LBQT community reached out to your organisation during this pandemic?

AK: We’ve had some cases throughout this quarantine time. One in particular was regarding a woman who faced hate speech by a prominent sport athlete who made a degrading statement with incitement to hate, and the activist called him out. As a result, there was an avalanche of hate speech towards her and then she faced death threats online. She also faced threats by fans of the athlete. 

We launched a media advocacy campaign and also relocated her during the pandemic. The first measure of the pandemic response by the state was isolation, stay at home, as a safe space but home is not always safe for everyone and it was very problematic to relocate a person during the quarantine, because there was a lockdown measure in place. And borders between the states were closed, so it was impossible to relocate her to another state. She was relocated within the same state.

IPS: How does the current pandemic — and global lockdown — affect the LBTQ community’s work and participation in the SDGs?

AK: What is important for activists and civil society and also for international community when they deal with governments like in Kazakhstan — whose economy is very resource and industry driven, and places priority on a lot of investment coming in — we see quite a lot of political will in engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework. But at the same time it is a country with a low human rights record, that resents a human rights framework.

What is important is for us to actually strengthen the links between the human rights and SDG frameworks and one cannot be implemented without the other. The state cannot cherry pick the one it likes and just ignore the recommendations in human rights treaties.

The Russian capital, Moscow. Sex workers in the country say although public opinion about their work is shifting, they still face marginalisation and criminalisation. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Apr 27 2020 (IPS)

Despite seeing a shift in attitudes towards them in recent years, Russian sex workers say they continue to struggle with marginalisation and criminalisation which poses a danger to them and the wider public.

• Sex work is illegal in Russia and, historically, public attitudes to the women, and more recently men, involved in providing it have been predominantly negative, and often virulently hostile.
• This has led to them being marginalised and with little protection against violence and prejudice not just among the general public and clients, but also the police and wider justice system.
• However, they say they have seen a change in the last two to three years as some of their work campaigning for rights and awareness of their work, has begun to bear fruit in the last few years.

“Media have begun to talk and write much more about sex work. Much of this has been more positive to sex workers, …and both their tone and rhetoric have become more tolerant,” Marina Avramenko of the Russian Forum of Sex Workers, which offers legal consultancy and support to sex workers, told IPS.

She added: “Sometimes media outlets conduct informal opinion polls about attitudes in society towards sex work and according to the results of these informal surveys, it is evident that more people have begun to talk about the need to allow sex work.”

• Sex work, which has been illegal in Russia since the Russian Federation was formed in 1991, is punishable both under criminal law and Russian civil offences legislation.
• Organising, or forcing someone into, prostitution, is a criminal offence carrying a penalty of up to eight years in jail. But sex work itself is a civil offence punishable by fines of up to 30 Euros.

Sex workers are one of the most marginalised groups in Russia today.

This is down in part to the influence of the Orthodox Church, which has grown in popularity in the decades since the fall of communism, on society and government policy. As with many other minority groups, such as the LGBTI community, sex workers have been demonised by the clergy.

Politicians also often publicly speak of sex workers in derogative or sometimes violently hostile terms.

“A negative attitude towards sex workers has been formed in society through propaganda and the Church. Sex workers are not recognised as a ‘social group’ and when people call for them to be killed or raped, or spread hate against them, they are not punished.

“False myths are also spread in society that sex workers destroy families, that they infect people with various diseases, and that sex workers are associated with organised crime,” said Avramenko.

Criminalisation itself also fuels this marginalisation.

International rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly highlighted the effects of criminalisation of sex work.

They point out it often leaves sex workers with no protection from police, unable to report crimes against them during their work for fear of getting a criminal record, or having their earnings confiscated or their work reported to others.

This means that the perpetrators of the crimes against them know they can act with impunity, while police can also abuse, extort or physically and sexually assault them with equal impunity.

Indeed, this is often the case in Russia. According to the Russian Forum of Sex Workers, informal surveys have shown that in about 80 percent of police raids on brothels or independent sex workers’ establishments, officers beat sex workers.

Some sex workers also recount horrific incidents they know of colleagues gang-raped by police, or held for days at police stations and beaten and starved.

“In general, police officers feel even more impunity than criminals and commit many crimes against sex workers,” said Avramenko.

Because of this, sex workers seldom report crimes to police. And, even if they do, these are rarely, or poorly investigated.

Evgenia Maron of the Russian Forum of Sex Workers’ Executive Committee, spoke to IPS about some of the cases which the group had been involved in, including that of sex worker from Gelendzhik who was raped. Investigators refused to initiate proceedings against her attacker on the grounds that “the applicant provides sexual services, which means that the perpetrator’s actions are not socially dangerous”.

He was eventually jailed for five years after Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights intervened.

In another case, a man filmed the robbery and rape of a sex worker in Ufa and forced his victim on camera to say that she was a prostitute as he was sure this would guarantee his impunity. He was eventually convicted but was sentenced to just over two years in jail and released immediately because he had already served that time in prison awaiting trial.

Sex workers also struggle to access lawyers. According to Maron, out of 250 cases where sex workers ended up in court under Administrative Code offences, only two were represented by lawyers in their hearings.

A church in Moscow. Russian sex workers say that Russia’s Orthodox Church has helped foster negative attitudes towards them in society. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

International rights and health organisations have also warned of the serious health threat posed by marginalisation of certain groups in society, including sex-workers.

Russia has one of the world’s worst HIV epidemics with more than a million people infected and infection rates running higher than in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemic has been driven largely by injection drug use but HIV is increasingly transmitted sexually and sex workers have been identified as particularly vulnerable.

A study published in 2016 by the Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network (SWAN) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, showed more than a quarter of sex workers had faced physical or sexual violence by police officers and that police persecution deprived them of the opportunity to work in safe conditions, choose clients, or use condoms with every client.  

But stigma and fear of their work being exposed mean sex workers struggle to access proper healthcare.

“Sex workers face obstacles in receiving medical care, primarily because there are very few special programs for them, and when they turn to state healthcare services, sex workers hide because of concerns about stigma that they are engaged in sex work,” said Maron.

Maron said that ensuring sex workers’ rights was essential, not just for the workers themselves, but for any country’s wider society, including public health.

“In the the event of violence, a sex worker cannot control the use of condoms, for example. Sex workers having greater guarantees of protection from violence, being able to file complaints with the police without obstacles, and rapists being punished to the fullest extent of the law will lead to positive health outcomes in the long run.

“It is violence that prevents necessary protection against STIs and other infections which have an important impact on public health,” she said.

In a few months a new version of Russia’s Administrative Code, which governs civil law offences, is due to be approved by lawmakers.

During its drafting phase Russian rights organisations and sex worker groups campaigned to have penalties for sex work stripped from the new version of the code.

The fines are officially recorded in an Interior Ministry database and employers running background checks on job applicants will often reject those they see have fines for sex work. There have also been reported incidents of the children of sex workers being refused access to higher education or employment in the public sector after these records have been found.

“[Having] prostitution as an offence destroys all opportunities for [these] women in their future lives,” Irina Maslova, director of the Silver Rose sex workers’ rights movement, was quoted as saying in the Kommersant newspaper in March.

The calls were ignored and relevant articles in the current code on sex work will remain in the new code.

Many rights groups say that the work undertaken by groups like the Russian Sex Workers Forum to try and guarantee sex workers’ rights is essential to ensuring wider gender equality.

In a 2017 report, the Global Network of Sex Work Projects argued that “ultimately, there can be no gender equality if sex workers’ human rights are not fully recognised and protected”.

The group said: “Sex workers’ rights activists, feminist allies and human rights advocates have long held that the agency of sex workers must be recognised and protected, that all aspects of sex work should be decriminalised, and that sex work should be recognised as work and regulated under existing labour frameworks.

“Given that the majority of sex workers are women and many come from LGBT communities, protecting sex workers’ rights is imperative to achieving gender equality as defined under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)”.

According to a policy brief on sexual health and rights by Women Deliver, an international organisation advocating around the world for gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women, “policies that address the often tenuous legal positions of sex workers should ensure that they are not further victimised by laws that could potentially lead to incarceration”.

“Sex workers are often forced to live and work on the margins of society due to the criminalisation and stigmatisation of their work; this provides them with little possibility for legal recourse if they experience any kind of gender-based violence. Strong legal and policy frameworks must include provisions that reflect the complete and diverse experiences and challenges women face in order to truly provide comprehensive protection of women’s sexual health and rights,” Women Deliver state.

Meanwhile, Russians sex workers continue to call for decriminalisation, although, Avramenko argues, it will only help to a certain extent.

“By itself, decriminalisation will not change much,” said Avramenko, citing the experience of sex workers in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan where sex work is decriminalised.

“There, sex work is not punishable, but the police and the state are constantly finding ways to violate sex workers’ rights,” she said.

She added decriminalisation needed to be accompanied by greater public awareness of sex work and its benefits for society as well as rooting out police corruption.

It appears unlikely this will happen any time soon with the church continuing to wield significant influence over political policy and public opinion, and the recent lack of change to civil law offences for sex work.

Maron said that for activists like her there was little they could do than carry on their work.

“We will continue to try to improve access to healthcare and justice for sex workers and open dialogue about what sex work is and what interaction with a sex worker means for wider society,” she said.

Their work does seem to be having some effect though, as the change in media reporting and surveys showing a more positive public attitude to sex work suggest.

“This is down to our work,” said Avramenko.

Excerpt:

In a world shaken by so many problems, it is difficult to look at 2020 and not make some kind of holistic analysis. While enormous progress has been made on many fronts, it is clear that the tide has turned, and we are now entering – or have already entered – a new low point in the history of humankind..

Roberto Savio

Since the end of the last decade, we have seen also another change in a vital environment: democracy. With the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, everybody was told that the threat of communism had now gone. As Francis Fukuyama famously wrote, it was the end of history. Capitalism and market would unify the world, and lift all boats, it was said at the time.

Then came the big financial crisis of 2008-2009 which cost governments (and therefore people) 12 trillion dollars and it became clear that only some boats were being lifted. Budget trimmings affected especially welfare, education and health, while at the same time some people were becoming fabulously rich. World debt doubled, (it now stands at 325 trillion dollars), and suddenly nationalistic, xenophobic and right-wing parties sprouted everywhere. Before the crisis of 2009, there was only one, in France. Even Nordic countries, long-time symbol of civism and tolerance saw the arrival of extreme right-wing governments.

The thirty years between the fall of Berlin Wall and the financial crisis, left a culture of competition, individualism and loss of values – a culture of greed. And the ten years between that crisis of and our incoming decade saw the rise of a culture of fear. Immigration became the catalyst We were being invaded, Islam was not compatible with our society, our jobs were being stolen, crime and drugs were coming in and the same leaders who do not believe in climate change became the guardians of Christianity, enacting restrictive laws to the applause of citizens, regardless of human rights. In the last two decades, trade unions have become irrelevant, and laws have been introduced that support the making of jobs precarious and reductions in social protection. People started having fear, looking at the uncertain future of their children.

Historians affirm that the two main engines of change in history are greed and fear. We enter the decade of the 2020s with both. Worse, many analysts believe we do so with hate.

The fact is that two flags that we thought had been discarded by history are making a comeback.

One is the flag ‘in the name of God’. We think of ISIS and Al Qaeda, but this is the basis of the image of Putin, Orban, Trump, Bolsonaro and Salvini. The use of religion by the right wing has been able to rally the poor. Theologian Juan Josè Tamayo has called politicians with bible in hand the Christo-neo-fascist alliance. In the last elections in Costa Rica, evangelical pastor Fabricio Alvarado won with a campaign based on the defence of Christian values and neoliberalism, against abortion and the paganism coming from Europe. This is precisely the electoral theme of Orban in Hungary, Kacynsky in Poland and Putin in Russia.

In Brazil, the evangelical church was vital in getting Bolsonaro elected. In El Salvador, the new president Nayib Bukele asked an extreme right-wing evangelical pastor to offer a prayer during his inaugural ceremony, and there is a draft law that would make the Bible compulsory reading in all schools. You will all remember how, after the overthrow of Eva Morales by the army, the new president of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez and her supporters went around with a bible in their hands at all ceremonies.

And let us not forget that Trump was elected because of the support of the evangelical church, which has 40 million faithful. He moved the US embassy to Jerusalem to get their support. Evangelicals believe that when Israel will recover all the territory of the biblical time, Christ will come to earth for a second time, and they will be the only ones that will be rewarded. The other country which moved its embassy to Jerusalem, Guatemala, was also the result of the move of an evangelical president.

Theologian Tamayo speaks of an international of hate: hate against gender equality, against LGTBs, against abortion, against immigrants. Those who propagate hate defend reinforcement of the patriarchal family, the submission of women, they despise what is not traditional, they mistrust science and statistics, they deny climate change, and they hate Muslims, Jews and blacks. What is being totally ignored in all this is the problem of social inequalities, the growing economic gap for reasons of ethnicity, culture, gender, social class, sexual identity, and so on.

Tamayo observes that this is becoming a new international movement, which is now coming to Europe, as the recent Spanish elections show. Vox, the extreme right-wing party, created just four years ago, now has 52 seats in the Parliament, and is the third largest party, like AFD in Germany. The party of Italy’s Salvini, with his rosary beads, has become the number one party, and he could become prime minister at any moment. And we know well of the very large conservative front against the Pope in the Catholic Church which also wants to save traditions, is against LGBTs, is for a patriarchal family, etc., etc. All this is about using religion, fear and hate for political gains.

And what about the flag ‘in the name of the nation’? Well, the best example is Benjamin Netanyahu who has passed a law which makes being a Jew the requisite for Israeli citizenship. This is how Narendra Modi in India is trying to deprive Muslims (170 million) of Indian citizenship; it is how the government in Myanmar is treating over one million Rohingyas. Those cases join religion with the fight against minorities and different religions in the name of the nation. China has now launched a campaign for a Chinese dream (also persecuting Uighur Muslim minorities). This is exactly the same strategy as that of Trump, who calls for the American dream. The United States has no allies, and anybody who makes money in trade with the United States is an adversary, be it Canada or Germany. “America First”, which in fact means “America Alone”.

So, the flags “in the name of God” and “in the name of the Nation” frequently overlap. Italian political scientist and economist Riccardo Petrella observes that in recent decades, a third flag has appeared with a large audience: ‘in the name of money”, and also that in the last two decades corruption has become another universal countervalue.

In its last report, Transparency International, the organisation which fights and denounces corruption, analyses how corruption is weakening democracy. Freedom House, a conservative US foundation, found that since 2006, 113 countries have seen a net decline in their freedom score, while only 62 have seen some improvement. The Economist says that democracy was stagnating in 2018, after three consecutive years of deterioration. Of the 62 countries which transitioned from authoritarian rule to some form of democracy, in the last quarter of the 20th century, half of them have seen their level of democracy stagnate or even falter. Transparency international highlights that while fight against corruption is high on the populists’ platform, when in power they tend to weaken democratic institutions, and engage into corruption like their predecessors. It cites the cases of various country, from Guatemala to Turkey, from the United States to Poland and Hungary. When corruption seeps into the democratic system it corrupts leaders. Economic corruption has increased in the last forty years, after the “greed is good” campaign, as the market has substituted man as the centre of society. It reaches the entire public sector, besides obviously the private sector.

Two-thirds of humankind now have no trust in police and other public services, because they are considered corrupt, and they believe that corruption is so diffuse that it cannot be eliminated.

We have become accustomed to hearing about corruption in the last two decades, because it is in the news every day. We have slowly become trained to look as natural things that are at all no natural: a good sign of the extent to which we have lost a moral compass.

If you ask children today if wars and poverty are natural, they will probably answer yes. And, as adolescents, they will also probably consider corruption as natural.

It is therefore evident that two fundamental environments for humankind are in danger. One in the short term is the natural environment. The conditions of life on the planet can worsen dramatically, and we have all the forecasts. We have only the coming decade to try to reverse the trend of climate change, be it natural (some say) or man-made (all scientists). But then the question is: how long do we have to protect our political environment, which runs our economic, social and cultural life, before that also goes into an irreversible decline?

Of course, a bloody dictatorship is less dramatic than seas rising seven metres, temperatures 3 degrees, or l0osing all our glaciers, and many rivers and water sources. Now that we have all the data, why do citizens not act for the survival of their environment?

On the other hand, 2019 will remain in history the year of mass demonstrations. In 21 countries, in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe, millions of people went out on the street to protest against corruption, social injustice, the gap between political institutions and citizens, the fear and decline of social welfare as a political priority, Young people, who have deserted political parties and elections, have been frequently at the forefront. They are at the head of the campaign for a sustainable world, where an adolescent, Greta Thunberg, has brought together young people from all over the world. But the system does not appear to be really listening to them, unless they become violent as in Chile, Paris, Baghdad or Hong Kong.

These reflections bring us to three conclusions.

The first is that, not by accident, the enemies of the fight to defend our natural environment are also the enemies of our political environment. they do not care if the first is destroyed, because they are intertwined with corporations, gas and oil companies, farmers who want to take over land (like the case of Brazil and Amazonia), or coal companies, like in Poland and Australia. But they want to twist the political environment in their favour, for their power. Orban of Hungary has campaigned for am illiberal democracy. Bolsonaro has gone further, talking about the good old days of the military dictatorship. And all of them, from Trump to Salvini, look on international cooperation, multilateral agreements and any initiative that reduces the freedom of a country for peace and justice (like the United Nations or the European Union) as enemies. They are all in favour of building walls, forgetting that the Second World War taught us to abolish them.

The second is that democracy is in danger, for the same reasons that the environment is also in danger. There is no ability and will among populists to reach any internal agreement. Would it be possible today to create the United Nations, or sign the Declaration on Human Rights? Certainly not just as there is no will to fight climate change.

The third, therefore, is what is going to happen in the new decade we are now entering. It looks like it will be a decisive decade. In just a few years, we must take action on how we will deal with two existential issues: how to remain in our present environment, and how we will live together.

All this will be decided by voters. And this raises an issue: is it legitimate to believe that fascism, xenophobia and nationalism are the answer to our problems? Humans should learn from their mistakes (like all other animals do). And we should have learnt from the two world wars that those beliefs are not an answer but the roots of war and confrontation.

So, here a final reflection. According to Steven Pinker, the Canadian cognitive scientist, writing in The Economist, in the last seven years humans have become healthier, live longer, are more secure, richer, freer, more intelligent and educated. This trend should continue. But humans have evolved, because they have dedicated themselves mainly to the advantages of reproduction, survival and material growth not because of wisdom or happiness.

The first urgent step is to reconcile progress with human nature. We have cognitive abilities, and also the ability to cooperate and be emphatic, unlike other animals. Between the Age of Enlightenment and the Second World War, we made important progress on science, democracy, human rights, free information, market rules and the creation of institutions for international cooperation. This trend cannot be stopped, argues Pinker; it is now in our genes.

Well, in ten years we will know if all this is in the human genes or is just one of the many passages of history. Also, because in 2022, Bolsonaro and Orban should leave office: Erdogan in 2023; Netanyahu, Modi, Putin and Trump in 2024. So, in just four years (a microsecond in human history), we will know how the world is, and what damages are irreversible or not, and if we have made any progress in halting the climate crisis. But Trump, etc, have been elected…

MARTIN KARADZHOV, Global Youth Commitee speaking at ICPD25. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

By Mantoe Phakathi
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 13 2019 (IPS)

Governments across the world must ban all state-implemented harmful practices against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) community delegates at the ICPD25 tells IPS.

Adding his voice in bridging the gap of Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) among the youth, Martin Karadzhov, chair for Global Youth Steering Committee, told delegates at a youth event themed “our bodies, our lives, our world”, at the 25thInternational Conference on Population Development (ICDP25).

LGBTQI young people remain voiceless

Although there are 1.8 billion youths between the ages of 10 and 24 years, they continue to be marginalised when it comes to SRHR issues. Karadzhov said LGBTQI youth in many countries were subjected to harmful practices including pressure on them to convert, a practice with no scientific basis which is also unethical and, in most instances, a torture. “Justice for one is justice for all,” he said.

He urged governments to repeal discriminatory laws against the LGBTQI community, adding that they were denied access to Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) services on the basis of their sexuality. “Our human rights are not controversial,” said Karadzhov.

Young people often only a statistic

Echoing his sentiments was Mavis Naa Korley Aryee, a youth programme national radio host at Curious Minds. She said although there are 1. 8 billion reasons why young people should be involved in decision-making process, they are only mentioned as statistics.“Being part of a minority should not be a reason for discrimination,” said Aryee.

Young people speak out at Nairobi Summit. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

She advocated for access to SRH services to be made available to all young people, adding that they have a right to make choices about their bodies. She was, however, encouraged by the way the global youth had stood up to be counted despite the challenges they face. Aryeenoted that the youth contributed to the development agenda leading to ICPD25, adding that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are also about them.

“We have then numbers. No one will ignore 1.8 billion reasons. The more we collaborate, the more we advance our agenda,” she said.

Fighting for a seat a the table

The global youth is fighting for a seat on the decision-making table where Marco Tsaradia, a Member of Parliament from Madagascar, said young people are told: “things have always been done like this”. He said the youth are keen to bring about new ideas because they are talented and innovative. However, he complained that the existing decision-making structure prevented them from achieving this objective.

It gets worse if young persons with disabilities want to enter the table because, said Leslie Tikolitikoca from the Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation, they tend to be “judged on their disabilities rather than their abilities”. For example, he said, instead of providing services to those who are unable to hear or see, those in power would rather make decisions on their behalf instead of helping them to contribute to the discussion.

“How are we going to ensure that we leave no one behind if we don’t involve all young people?” he wondered.

EU commits funding

Following the youth’s proposed solutions to their SRHR, Henriette Geiger, from the directorate of people and peace at the European Union Commission, said it was time to act. She said the EU has proposed that governments should consider reducing the voting age to 16 years.

Young people at ICPD25 youth session. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi / IPS

“That would make a huge impact in decision-making on youth policy,” she said, adding that the EU was funding key initiatives to change public perceptions about the LGBTQI community by using film.

Although she said the EU was involved in many SRHR programmes in Africa, she further pledged €29 million towards SRHR programmes for the youth, urging organisations to take advantage of this initiative.

Not all doom and gloom

During the opening address of the ICPD25, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director, Natalia Kanem, told delegates “good progress is not good enough”, insisting that the promises made to girls, women and everyone should be kept.

Kanem paid special tribute to the youth, for bringing new ideas and resources to make rights and choices a reality.

“To the youth, you’re inspiring in pushing us to go further Thank you,” said Kanem.

It is not all sad and gloomy for the youth, said Ahmed Alhendawi, the secretary-general of the World Organisation of the Scouts Movement. The fact that the youth have formed themselves into a global youth movement should be celebrated because that is how they are going to win the fight to be part of decision-making processes.

By Mawethu Nkosana
BUCHAREST, Romania, May 3 2019 (IPS)

Romanian Adrian Coman and his American-born partner Clai Hamilton had two major reasons to celebrate when they tied the knot last June.

One of course, was their marriage. The other was the historic legal victory they scored when their case before Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) led to the recognition of same sex marriage for the purpose of freedom of movement in the European Union (EU).

The case, challenging current law, represented a significant victory for LGBTQI rights, in particular in Eastern Europe.

The couple had married in Belgium in 2010 and later decided to settle in Coman’s native Romania. But Hamilton was denied residency rights because the civil code does not recognise same-sex marriages. So, they took the matter to the Romanian courts, which referred it to the CJEU.

Romania currently ranks 35th out of the 49 countries assessed by the European region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA-Europe,), in terms of its equality laws and policies.

Romania compares fairly favourably – when it comes to protecting and promoting LGBTQI rights – to many other Balkan states. But there is an apparent disconnect between the Romanian government’s intentions and public opinion.

While the government adopted anti-discrimination legislation in 2000 and decriminalised consensual same-sex relationships the following year, it did an about-face in 2008 when it changed the civil code to ban same-sex marriage and civil partnerships. But 10 years later, referendum voters rejected an attempt to enforce this prohibition at the Constitutional level.

In this, Romania is not alone. Uncertainty over LGBTQI rights manifests in a variety of ways across the Balkan region, a massive swathe of territory stretching across Eastern Europe from Turkey in the south to Romania in the north.

This uncertainty is a breeding ground for further discrimination, the non-implementation of more liberal civil regimes and the official apathy toward the commission of crimes against members of the LGBTQI community.

For example, in 2015, Slovenia’s parliament passed a same-sex marriage bill with a vote of 51-28. But Slovenians disagreed: nine months later, they rejected the new law in a referendum, by a margin of 63% to 37%.

Across the Black Sea from Romania, an incident in Armenia demonstrated the challenges that still lie ahead for LGBTIQ rights in this general part of the world. This week, around 100 demonstrators gathered outside the national assembly in the capital, Yerevan, to protest a speech in parliament by a transgender activist. Lilit Martirosyan’s address at a hearing organised by the United Nations and the Armenian Human Rights Defender’s Office. While fuelled by party politics, the protests were clearly transphobic.

In some places a more liberal legal framework has been established but greater tolerance is not guaranteed. Croatia passed the Life Partnership Act in 2014, granting same-sex couples the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts – except for adoption, although a parent’s life partner can become a child’s partner-guardian.

This was despite an opinion poll the previous year, showing that almost 60% of Croats thought that marriage should be constitutionally defined as being between a man and a woman. This raises questions around the enforceability and public acceptance of the Life Partnership Act.

Greece presents a more extreme example of public opinion rising against political decisions. Despite its parliament approving civil unions for same-sex couples in a landslide 194-55 vote four years ago, when polls showed that only a third of citizens supported such a reform, public attitudes toward the LGBTQI community remained hardened.

In its 2019 review of LGBTI rights, ILGA-Europe reports the prevalence of homophobic and transphobic speech in Greece, in particular by clergy. It notes also the an International LBTQI youth and student organization ranks Greece as one of the least inclusive countries around LGBTQI issues in education.

The ILGA-Europe review also describes the shocking 2018 murder of LGBT+ and HIV activist Zak Kostopoulos, who was fatally beaten by an Athens jewellery shop owner, a second person and police officers.

Despite videos of the incident being made public, the media made later-discredited claims that he had been trying to rob the shop and had been under the influence of drugs.

The other side of the coin is where authorities, even when they are not backed by legislation, foment hatred and violence toward the LGBTQI community – as in Turkey, where homosexuality has been legal since 1858, although sexual orientation, gender identity and same-sex relationships are not recognised in civil rights laws.

In November 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared the empowering LGBT people to be “against the values of our nation”. A week later, the governor’s office in the capital, Ankara, banned all LGBT cultural events in that city.

Deep-seated prejudice towards the LGBTQI community in the Balkans – in contrast to Western Europe, where studies and polls consistently show more liberal attitudes – have been further inflamed by the influx over several years of refugees from conflict zones in the Middle East.

LGBTQI refugees from countries like Iraq and Syria escape sexual orientation or gender discrimination and persecution in their homelands, only to face it once again in the Balkans.

Fearful, many do not report their sexual orientation or gender identity when applying for refugee status. This invariably leads to their applications being rejected and them being repatriated to their home countries.

If they stay, or move to another country, their illegal status means they are often forced to support themselves through high-risk occupations such as sex work. And because they enjoy no legal rights, they are at risk of official persecution and have no recourse should they be victimised by the general public.

The win for LGBTQI rights in the Coman-Hamilton judgment is without doubt important, and it stands proudly among other small victories in the Balkans region. But what positive changes there have been are incremental, and often negated by continued prejudice and a lack of will to implement reforms.

Until public and official attitudes undergo a paradigm shift in every one of the Balkan states – irrespective of whether or not their civil regimes are currently transforming – the region’s LGBTQI community will continue to be denied basic human rights and disproportionately suffer indignity, discrimination and violence.

Excerpt:

By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 4 2019 (IPS)

Is there a connection between sex education, gender equality and promiscuity? On this website, Fabiana Fraysinnet recently denounced a Brazilian crusade against sex education conducted by conservative and religious sectors. Such initiatives are common in several other countries, where politicians and religious leaders accuse sexual education of blurring boundaries between male and female and thus foment homosexuality and transsexualism, as well as a moral relativism undermining family structures and adherence to religious guidance and dogma.

An opposite position is reflected by the personal motto of the Norwegian-Swedish journalist and socialist agitator Elise Ottosen-Jensen, who in 1933, together with a number of radical medical doctors founded the Swedish Association for Sexualiity Education (RFSU):

I dream of the day when every new born child is welcome, when men and women are equal, and when sexuality is an expression of intimacy, joy and tenderness.

Through her work as a journalist Elise Ottosen-Jensen had gained insights into the everyday life of working-class women. Scarce resources, hard work and domestic violence were common problems. Her conviction that the many unwanted pregnancies were a problem for several families and also a threat to women´s health and well-being turned her into an outspoken promotor of contraceptives and an agitator against the so-called sex laws, which prohibited use of contraceptives and penalized homosexuality. Until 1938 Swedish laws forbade the use of, information about, as well as distribution and marketing of contraceptives and it was not until 1944 that homosexuality was decriminalized. In 1955, sexual education was made compulsory in Swedish schools.

While I studied pedagogy in the 1970s the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire´s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was obligatory reading for all future Swedish teachers. Freire stated that pupils simply memorized “facts” transmitted by their teachers, maintaining that all education instead ought to problematize what appears to be simple truths and provoke students to “self-determination”. I was taught that the Swedish school was supposed to support the ”development of critically thinking individuals,” able to dispute generally accepted dogmas and opinions.

Sexual education was part of that agenda and connected to gender equality. It was emphasized that all over the world girls and women are facing social, economic and cultural barriers impeding their education and livelihoods and that even more lack comprehensive sexuality education, which serves as a tool for women to take control of their bodies, to plan their future and avoid unintended pregnancy, child-, early- and forced marriages.

Some educators soon developed Freire´s theories into something they labelled as “anti-oppressive education”, i.e. a commitment to empower youngsters from minority groups by making them question norms that determine people’s perceptions of what is “normal”. Such views have increasingly come to influence the current Swedish debate about the rights of people who identify themselves as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer).

Swedish radicals have recommended that children are given “gender neutral names”, while children´s books address norm changing themes, for example Kalle som Lucia, “Kalle as Lucia”. This particular story is about a boy who wants to be Lucia. In all Swedish schools winter solstice is celebrated by processions headed by a beautiful girl chosen by the pupils to be Lucia, Bringer of Light. While connecting traditional gender roles to normative change, books like Kalle as Lucia are supposed to teach kids that it is OK to be different.

Another Swedish norm changing initiative has been the replacement of the Swedish words for she and he with the neutral hen (from the Finnish gender neutral hän). Such efforts have been criticized as “ridiculous”, or even worse – as a Government supported scheme to blur the difference between the sexes, described as an integrated part of efforts to secure gender equality, which in reality is an entirely different endeavour. Gender equality aims at fomenting equal access to resources and opportunities for people of different sex, it does not at all seek to abolish biologically conditioned differences between women and men.

People who use bio-determinism as an argument against gender equality, claiming that promoting equal rights for women and men is a violation of religious and natural laws, ignore the fact people are able to change. John Stuart Mill, the 19th century economist and promoter of women’s emancipation, emphasized the dangers of bio-determinism:

• Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences upon the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences.

¹

We have over time developed social patterns that resist aggression and selfish behaviour. While living close together, humans have used their superior brains to comprehend how violence and excessive dominant behaviour are intrinsically bad for the survival of our specie. Humans are able to change their habitats, instead of exclusively adapting to them, something that is due to the fact that human beings are genetically programmed to make use of reason, culture and free will, an endeavour supported by education aimed at promoting openness, mutual support and compassion.

Ignorance about reproductive health is currently threatening to increase rates of teen pregnancy, communicable diseases, misogyny and abuse of girls and adolescents. Attacking gender equality and sex education in the guise of opposition to norm criticism may prove to be harmful to the entire society and not the least the wellbeing of women, whose health is threatened by the bigotry of religious leaders, harmful traditions and prejudiced politics.

Some years ago, I visited Andean communities, interviewing women about their life situation. I had previously found that as a foreign man one of the best ways of approaching reticent women in rural settings had been to do so in the company of a local midwife. What worried me during my encounters with Andean women was their often poor state of health and I assumed it was the midwife´s presence that made them reveal their pains.

Several suffered from vaginal prolapse and other conditions affecting the female reproductive system. Ailments caused by congenital malformations, or difficulties during pregnancies that came too early in life and often had been far too frequent. Women´s suffering could also have been a consequence of difficult deliveries, poor hygiene, deficient preventive healthcare, hard work, badly treated infections and venereal diseases. Disease affecting productive organs were generally suffered in silence, considered to be shameful since everything connected with female bodies was burdened by prejudices, chauvinism and religious narrow-mindedness. My meeting with these women made me realize that gender equality is not only an issue of equity between men and women, but physical differences between males and females have to be addressed as well.

We are able to change our destiny for the better by liberating ourselves from shackles of intolerance supported by murky traditions and misinterpreted biological determinism. This is one reason to why gender equality, and not the least – unrestricted access to healthcare and sex education for both women and men, benefit the entire mankind. Fear of male power loss and an assumed spread of homosexuality cannot be allowed to forbid sex education and become an obstacle to women´s health and wellbeing.

¹Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Principles of political economy. University of Toronto Press. p. 319

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.