ILGA together with Pan Africa ILGA, Pilipina Legal Resources Center and RFSL, warmly invites you to a side event on:

Friday 17 June 2016
10.30 am to 12 noon
Room XIX, Palais des Nations, Geneva

Laws that protect LGBT persons: changes and challenges

Panelists:
Aengus Carroll (Ireland), author of ILGA State-Sponosred Homophobia report
Summary of report

Micah Grzywnowicz, RFSL (Poland/Sweden)
Trans perspectives on discrimination

Jacobus Witbooi, Pan Africa ILGA (Namibia)
Ways ahead in sub-Saharan Africa

Kristine Antonio, Pilipina Legal Resources Center (Philippines)
Combatting Discrimination on SOGI in the Philippines

Background

The eleventh annual edition of ILGA’s annual State Sponsored Homophobia report documents ongoing positive developments in sexual orientation law around the world, and through a series of maps, charts and expanded text entries, illustrates the distance yet to be travelled in so many States.

From Botswana to Indonesia, Fiji to Georgia, as of June 2016, there are now 71 UN States that offer workplace protection for LGBT persons. We have also seen recent repeals of criminalizing laws in Mozambique, Seychelles and Nauru. That said, there are still 73 States that criminalize consensual, private, same-sex sexual activity, though the number where this is actively enforced is significantly lower. Other forms of criminalization occur too: laws that criminalize the promotion of so-called ‘non-traditional’ sexual orientations, or morality codes that target communication or organization around LGBT issues.

Purpose

The purpose of this event is to present some of the legislative changes that have taken place since May 2015 that impact LGBT persons and to highlight some of the hopes and challenges ahead. In particular the event will focus on some of the laws that counter discrimination. In this context, it will also be a space to discuss the role that the United Nations Human Rights Council, and in particular a Special Procedure, could play in helping to help further bring about positive change and work with governments in constructive ways.

The event will balance the research behind the ILGA State Sponsored Homophobia report, the lived-realities of LGBT persons in countries from different regions and the international political landscape.