Authors:
Lisa Power,
Micha Ramakers
additional text and layout: Andy Quan
For the first time, the International Lesbian and Gay Association is presenting an Annual Report. Our intention is to build solidarity among the global lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, to achieve the recognition of the human rights of the homosexual community by society, governments, and institutions, and to strengthen support in the fight against AIDS.It is certainly difficult to summarize all that has happened in one year, events that range from lesbian activism at the Women's Conference in Beijing to the police raids in different cities in Latin America. We thank the authors of this report, Micha Ramakers and Lisa Power, for their work and contributions; we'd also like to recognize the thousands and thousands of activists around the world who do volunteer work for the 300 member organizations of ILGA. Thank you for your efforts and dedication! We are working for a better world, for the right to love, as well for our children and future generations. Gay and Lesbian Rights are Human Rights!
Jordi Petit and Inge Wallaert, secretaries general of ILGA
Each year, the lesbian, gay and bisexual movement and our communities across the globe see victories for human rights and face new challenges from homophobia and bigotry. ILGA has brought together some of the events which have shaped gay life over the past year in some of the countries around the world.
In Switzerland, the National Council voted 68 61 to order the government to introduce a same sex partnership law.
The city of Antwerp in Belgium began a register on January 1st 1996 of couples living together, regardless of whether they were same sex or opposite sex couples. Other Belgian cities announced that they would follow.
The Hungarian Parliament recognised common law relationships between homosexuals in May 1996, giving them the same rights as heterosexuals except in the adoption of children.
In the USA, San Francisco mayor Willie Brown Jr. "married" nearly two hundred same sex couples in March 1996 as a gesture of support despite the lack of same sex partnership provision in any US state. However, Hawaii's Supreme Court ruled in favor of three gay couples demanding full same sex marriage rights, sparking off legislative battles in states across the USA including several bans on gay marriages. Hawaii is expected to legalise marriage within the next year, an advance on those countries which offer partial rights through partnerships laws.
The French government, which allows Swedish heterosexuals to register their partnership in their embassy in Paris, banned same sex partners from doing so despite the legality of the move on Swedish soil.
Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, banned the country's only lesbian and gay group GALZ from participating in the state funded Zimbabwean International Book Fair, whose theme was supposed to be "Human Rights and Justice". The banning escalated into a huge international incident. Governments across the world protested and public demonstrations greeted Mugabe wherever he visited, leading to further abuse and incitement to violence against gays by him. But increased government harrassment and homophobic statements, ironically, have led to a great increase in support for GALZ both in Zimbabwe and across the globe. Its membership is reported to have doubled.
Portugal's first gay newspaper, Trivia, was launched in January 1996.
The highly respected and conservative international business magazine The Economist carried a major article about the growth of the international gay movement and an editorial and front cover supporting gay marriage.
Siberian lesbians and gays held their first official conference.
Kenya saw the foundation of its first openly gay AIDS charity. FOPOGAP (forum for supportive gays on AIDS prevention) which appealed through ILGA for international support.
Curacao in the Caribbean got its first organization, Orguyo (Pride), with a newsletter and monthly club night.
Sri Lankan gays founded a group "Companions On A Journey" and organised a conference on emerging gay identities despite a law punishing sex between mean with jail sentences of up to twelve years.
Hungarian group Meleg Hatter started a helpline for lesbians and gay men in Budapest in February 1996 with funding from the Soros Foundation.
European groups working on AIDS and gay men, most of them ILGA member organizations, met in London in February 1996 to discuss co operation on AIDS prevention campaigns for gay holidaymakers in the region. The group included Co Secretary Jordi Petit. Unfortunately, the European Union declined to fund the campaign despite its success in Ibiza in 1995.
Delegates at an International AIDS Conference in New Delhi, India, called on India to repeal its sodomy law and recognise the extent of male to male transmission of HIV in the country, currently ignored by the government. The Indian railway company Sanjay, revoked their ban on people with AIDS travelling by rail after intense lobbying.
A successful training seminar was held for the first time by the ILGA AIDS Working Party in Curitiba, Brazil, in May 1996 bringing together 26 organizations from 6 countries. At the International AIDS Conference in Vancouver, Canada, the ILGA AIDS Working Party was officially received by UN AIDS who expressed an interest in AIDS/HIV prevention projects in Latin America.
In Argentina, a national decree is passed for compulsory HIV tests for the Armed and Security Forces and three provinces enact compulsory testing for drug users, sex workers and homosexuals.
A French appeal court upheld an insurance award to the partner of a lesbian killed in a car accident, creating a precedent for partnership rights in France.
A new penal code for Spain, ratified in November 1995, recognises sexual orientation as a fundamental liberty. This was the first law to protect the rights of homosexuals in any Latin Catholic country.
Slovenia's new penal code bans both discrimination and special rights upon, among many other grounds, sexual orientation.
Canada included sexual orientation in its Human Rights Act.
Poland's draft constitition currently includes sexual orientation within a human rights clause. If passed, it will become the second country in the world after South Africa to constitutionally protect lesbians, gay men and bisexuals.
Germany's phoneline for victims of anti gay violence reported an 15% increase in reported attacks in 1995 over the previous year.
Peru's National Police detained 600 people without explanation in a series of raids on gay discos in Lima in Jaunuary and February 1996.
Chile's police, wearing gloves and hospital gowns took a television crew with them to arrest patrons ot two gay discos in Santiago. Those arrested were questioned about their sexual habits and HIV status. The police later claimed the raid had been "a mistake" and handed over the arrest files to the Chilean gay movement. Police arrest gays and lesbians in raids in Buenos Aires, Argentina in August 1995 and in La Paz, Bolivia, this year.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission organised an International Tribunal on Human Rights Violations Against Sexual Minorities in October 1995 to coincide with the fifitieth anniversary.
Lesbians, gay men and transexuals from El Salvador, the USA, Turkey, India, Argentina, Zimbabwe, Romania and the Phillipines testified to personal and often violent discrimination and denial of their human rights.
In July 1995, parliamentarians of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) recognize sexual orientation as an area of non discrimination in its "Ottawa Declaration."
In the USA, a lesbian and a gay man from Iran were both granted asylum.
But in Sweden, a gay Iranian claiming asylum was deported back to Iran.
IGLHRC coordinated a highly successful lesbian tent and many lesbians joined together to drape a banner reading "Lesbian Rights Are Human Rights" from the balcony to the main hall, creating an image which was used by news agencies across the globe. Sadly, sexual orientation was deleted from the final document after pressure from a number of governments, but many national representatives publicy stated that they would "read in" the clause into their interpretation of the anti discrimination measures.
Singapore announced in January 1996 that post operative transexuals would be free to marry people of the opposite sex.
Australia's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras attracted a record 600,000 people from across the world, bringing US $44 million into Sydney's economy.
London's Pride changed its full official name to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride in a landslide vote by its membership.
European Pride organisers estimated that more than half a million people attended Pride celebrations across the continent in 1995, a massive growth from around 50,000 in 1990.
Slovenian lesbians and gay men held their first international conference in August 1995, attracting speakers from the USA, Britain, the Netherlands and Germany.
The 17th ILGA World Conference in Rio de Janeiro sees the first international lesbian and gay event and the first Pride March ever held in
Brazil, with Brazilian activists cominig together to also launch a national federation.
South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu publicly announced his support for homosexuals, comparing anti homosexual discrimination to apartheid.
Tasmania, the only state in Australia where homosexual acts are illegal, elected an openly gay man to the Australian Federal Government.
South Africa appointed an out gay activist, Edwin Cameron, as a Supreme Court judge. A gay activist in Chile, where homosexuality is illegal, will run for municipal office in October 1996.
In October 1995, ILGA's Co Secretary Inge Wallaert spoke at a public hearing of the European Parliament to demand that the Parliament recognise the fundamental rights of lesbians and gay men within the European union. She asked the Intergovernmental Conference in 1996 to include sexual orientation within an anti discrimination clause in a new European Treaty.
Eigil Axgil, a pioneer of the Danish gay movement and one of the first gays to marry in the world in Copenhagen in 1989, died in September, aged 71.
The European Union awards ILGA ECU 150,000 from the Phare Tacis programme for their year long Lesbian And Gay Anti Discrimination Project, in conjunction with the World Health Organization. The money is used to support groups in Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, St. Petersburg and Moscow and includes HIV/AIDS prevention work.
Vice President of the European Union, Manuel Marin, receives ILGA Secretary General Jordi Petit to discuss human rights and HIV/AIDS work.
Last modified: Sun Aug 4 22:38:59 MET DST 1996
Copyrights ILGA, Gais et Lesbiennes Branchés
© 1996
Page d'accueil