World LGBT blackspots
Craig Young on gaynz.com has written on world LGBT blackspots. These include:
- Nigeria has imposed draconian penalties against same-sex marriage.
- Uganda’s Christian Right is advocating legalised psychiatric abuse of lesbians and gay men, forced to submit to charlatan ‘exgay therapy.’
- Brazil’s military and paramilitary groups engage in ‘social cleansing’ against urban poor gay men and transsexuals in its favelas.
- Jamaica’s ragga industry continues to churn out homophobic lyrics that encourage homophobic violence and homicide.
- Shia paramilitary militia prowl the streets of Baghdad and either abduct or murder lesbians and gay men.
- Iran’s government orders flogging and execution of LGBT Iranians.
As he points out:
Most of the above natures have compound injustices and inequalities festering
inside them. Most have had lamentable histories of democratic instability,
marked by intertribal, ethnic minority and sectarian religious violence and
civil war, and long periods of military dictatorship and/or brutal government
corruption. Independent trade unions, liberal religious organisations and any
permissible opposition movements are also subjected to harrassment, violence and
homicide. There are negligible levels of higher education and/or professional
middle-class employment prospects, either.
In other words, where there has been democracy, it has not been true democracy part of which involves a protection of minority rights.
International organisations that are seeking to remove this discrimination are:
- Amnesty International
- Human Rights Watch
- ILGA – International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association
For a map of world LGBT legal rights, click here.
