By Emily Geminder
29 July 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Of the more than 3,000 non-governmental organizations holding consultative status to the United Nations, only a handful address gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex issues. This week saw an incremental but significant step towards change: two groups, COC Netherlands and the State Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals of Spain (FELGTB), gained admittance to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Council brings together civil society groups to advise the General Assembly on promoting economic and social development and essentially grants groups access to the floor of international decision making.
The victory, said Boris Dittrich, Advocacy Director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, did not come easily. “In January, the status of the two
organizations came up for review at the NGO committee at the United Nations headquarters,” he told MediaGlobal. “Two of the board members of COC Netherlands were called onstage, and they had to answer questions from member states about the activities of their NGO. Some of the questions were very impertinent,” The questions, Dittrich noted, were largely coming from the delegates of Egypt, Pakistan, and Qatar. “They were asking questions like, ‘Do you denounce pedophilia?’ and ‘What do you think about sex with minors?’ Those kinds of questions are obviously not asked of other organizations. It was quite embarrassing to witness.”
The two organizations, along with one other, were blocked from entrance in February by votes from Burundi, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, and Sudan. Delegations from supportive governments and civil society groups called the ruling blatantly discriminatory. Following an exhaustive campaign, the votes were overturned for the Dutch and Spanish groups this week.
Paula Ettelbrick, Executive Director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission called the decision a substantial step towards achieving international representation. “For many years, LGBTI NGOs have been struggling to obtain consultative status at the United Nations so that the voice of LGBTI people around the world can be more visible, and so that our efforts to advance human rights are enhanced by involvement throughout the united Nations,” she told MediaGlobal.
The impact of United Nations policy bears far-reaching implications for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex individuals everywhere, and the community’s marginalization within the international framework has come under increasing scrutiny. According to South Africa based Gender Dynamix, Africa’s first transgender rights organization, discrimination against individuals who do not conform to conventional gender expression places them at high risk for HIV infection, compounding the impotence of national and global policies that fail to take sexual and gender minorities into account. Caroline Joan Bowley of Gender Dynamix told MediaGlobal, “Due to the fact that transgender people do not have access to formal state medical services in South Africa they are often forced to seek other means to raise the finances required for their transition and surgery. This sometimes results in transwomen becoming sex workers. They are therefore at high risk of exposure to HIV/AIDS and many other sexually transmitted diseases.”
Discrimination in all sectors of life, from limited employment opportunities to lack of access to housing and education, forces a disproportionate percentage of the male-to-female transgender community becoming involved in sex work. Biological females who do not conform to conventional modes of femininity find themselves at particular risk of sexual violence at the hands of men who justify their actions as providing corrective “cures” for non-conforming behavior. In many cases, violence also comes from the police, who take advantage of laws that may criminalize sex work, non-heterosexual sex, or both, to harass and intimidate the transgender population.
Meanwhile, the silence shrouding the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community in many countries has directly translated into a silence regarding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. A recent study by the United Nations foundation for AIDS relief found that men who have sex with men have been particularly failed by government policies, with only one in 20 men who have sex with men having access to prevention, treatment, and care services. The lack of access is compounded by the criminalization of homosexual sex in many countries, which forces sex underground and keeps many from seeking treatment. The blatantly homophobic stance of some governments translates into imprisonment, marginalization, violence, and even death for those who do not conform to conventional modes of gender expression or sexual orientation.
In Uganda, a recent protest of the government’s HIV/AIDS policy, which effectively excludes sexual and gender minorities, led to the arrest of three activists. On Thursday, protesters staged a demonstration outside the Ugandan mission to the United Nations, calling on the Ugandan government to reform its HIV/AIDS policy and release those imprisoned. On the issue of the government’s policy, Kihumuro Apuuli, Director General of the Uganda AIDS Commission, stated that, “gays are one of the drivers of HIV in Uganda, but because of meager resources we cannot direct our programs at them at this time.”
In response to his statement, Kaytee Riek of Health GAP (Global Access Project), one of the organizers of the demonstration, told MediaGlobal, “The gay community is not driving the AIDS epidemic. Stigma is driving the epidemic. And those sort of remarks only add to the stigma.”
While the protest hoped to give voice to those who have been marginalized, it could not be ignored that the voice was coming from outside the halls of power rather than from within. The recent gain of consultative status in the United Nations may be a step towards a more formal solidification of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex rights in the international community, but Dittrich says it is far from adequate. He advocates the creation of a United Nations Special Rapporteur to investigate discrimination against the community and monitor progress worldwide. “This person would then report directly to the Human Rights Council,” he said. “Many countries in the human rights council don’t see LGBTI issues as human rights, so that could be a beginning.”