U.S. Embassy Responds to LGBT Violence in Iraq
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill responded to the Council to emphasize the U.S. Embassy's concern over reports of homophobic violence in Iraq. Those reports are examined in a detailed report by Human Rights Watch. In his letter, Ambassador Hill assures the Council that the Embassy is working with Iraqi government officials to investigate acts of violence against the LGBT community and to offer protection for those who remain vulnerable. Ambassador Hill also reports that the Embassy is working with the United Nations to facilitate the resettlement of at-risk individuals. Please find a copy of the letter here.
Conference on LGBT Rights
At the invitation of the Dutch Government and Dutch foreign assistance provider HIVOS, the Council’s Senior Advisor, former U.S. Ambassador Michael Guest, was a keynote speaker at a mid-June conference in the Netherlands on how national efforts to achieve LGBT human rights can intersect. The conference, held at the historic Peace Palace in The Hague, brought together activists from five continents. Guest's comments focused largely on the extent to which the Obama Administration can be expected to play a leadership role in advancing LGBT rights around the globe. Click here to read his remarks.
President Obama Signs Memorandum Granting Partial Benefits to LGBT Employees of Federal Government
Washington, DC, June17, 2009 – During a White House ceremony in the Oval Office today,President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum granting limited domestic partnership benefits to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees of the federal government, including U.S. diplomats serving in the country’s many embassies and missions around the world. In a written statement, President Obama recognized that it was the lack of such benefits in the State Department that forced Michael Guest, the country’s first Senate-confirmed, openly gay U.S. Ambassador and now a Senior Advisor to the Council for Global Equality, to leave his diplomatic career, “because he believed that the country he served was failing to implement the principles of equality it espoused abroad.” Read Complete Press Release
Read White House Press Announcement
U.S. House of Representatives Approves LGBT Provisions in Foreign Relations Authorization Act (HR 2410)
Washington, DC, June 11, 2009 – Late yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010‐11. Importantly, the Act (HR 2410) has groundbreaking provisions that will strengthen the State Department’s attention to serious human rights abuses directed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals worldwide. Read Complete Press Release
The U.S. House of Representatives passes state department Authorization bill (HR 2410)
On June 10, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted the State Department Authorization bill (HR 2410). Importantly, the bill has groundbreaking provisions that will strengthen the State Department's attention to serious human rights abuses directed against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals worldwide.
The bill was adopted over Republican objections that "social issues such as gay rights and abortion have no place in a State Department funding bill." But the bill does not focus on social issues, it merely creates mechanisms to improve the U.S. government's support for basic human rights, including the rights of women and of LGBT communities abroad. The bill instructs the State Department:
- to establish an Office for Global Women's Issues;
- to create one or more positions within the Human Rights Bureau to monitor international LGBT concerns;
- to work through U.S. embassies to encourage countries to repeal or reform laws that criminalize homosexuality or consensual homosexual conduct or that otherwise restrict fundamental human rights;
- to improve human rights reporting on LGBT issues, with a new requirement to include transgender concerns; and
- to include LGBT issues in human rights training courses for Foreign Service Officers.
Read the Council's press release
Read the LGBT Provisions from Section 333 of HR 2410
Read more about the bill
View a pre-markup version of the entire bill
View The Council for Global Equality's Letter to Chairman Berman
View Michael Guest's Letter to Chairman Berman
The Council for global equality participates in a "WORLD congress on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity"
The Council for Global Equality participated in a “World Congress on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity” in Paris in May. The Congress was organized by the French, Norwegian and Dutch governments and was attended by representatives of the 67 countries that have so far joined the UN General Assembly Statement on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. The Obama Administration announced its support for the UN Statement in March and was represented at the Paris Congress by Atul Keshap, an official in the International Organizations Bureau at the State Department in Washington.
At the Congress, Mr. Keshap affirmed that the “U.S. is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of discrimination around the world. In joining like-minded nations at this conference, we demonstrate our commitment to end violence, detention, and execution internationally against gay, lesbian, trans-sexual, and bisexual individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” The United States also pledged to work “diligently with our embassies across the globe” to oppose laws that criminalize consensual homosexual conduct. Read the entire text of the U.S. statement here.
Council Chair Mark Bromley spoke at one of the Congress roundtables to emphasize the importance of government commitments to funding the LGBT human rights sector internationally. Representatives of funding institutions in East Africa, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States were also represented on the roundtable. The panel’s conclusions were later summarized for all government representatives at the closing session of the Congress. In particular, the roundtable called on all governments that have signed the UN General Assembly Statement “to provide financial resources, in proportion to their means and their general development budgets, to support LGBT civil society and to promote health, social integration and economic development within LGBT communities.”
UN STATEMENT AFFIRMS THE UNIVERSALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS FOR ALL
In March, the Obama Administration announced the U.S. government's support for a UN Statement on "Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity," reversing one of the final decisions of the Bush Administration. The UN Statement affirms the universality of human rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, and calls for the decriminalization of homosexuality. The Council applauded this important reversal of position.
At the Council for Global Equality, we worked closely with member organizations to encourage the Bush Administration to join the statement when it was first introduced in December. But despite thousands of calls to the State Department, letters from Members of Congress, and requests from close U.S. allies, Bush Administration officials refused. The United States was one of the only countries in the "Western Group" at the United Nations that failed to sign. The Council quickly prepared a policy paper for the Obama transition team, explaining why President Obama and Secretary Clinton should rectify this final blemish to U.S. human rights leadership by joining the UN statement and affirming human right for all.
President Obama's decision to join the groundbreaking UN human rights statement came just a few weeks after the State Department released an annual report to Congress that examines the human rights record of every country around the world. Based on the Council's analysis, this year's human rights report from the State Department is the most comprehensive to date on sexual orientation and gender identity issues (referenced in 190 country reports), and it points to a growing pattern of human rights abuses directed against LGBT people around the world. The Council for Global Equality looks forward to constructive engagement on these and other human rights issues under the new Obama Administration, since President Obama stated during the Presidential campaign that "treatment of gays, lesbians and transgender persons is part of this broader human-rights discussion," and that it needs to be "part and parcel of any conversations we have about human rights." And in Brussels this spring, Secretary Clinton assured an audience at the European Parliament that "human rights is and always will be one of the pillars of our foreign policy. In particular, persecution and discrimination against gays and lesbians is something we take very seriously."
U.S. HOUSE PASSED THE FULLY INCLUSIVE LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT
The Council for Global Equality is delighted that at the end of April, the U.S. House passed the fully inclusive Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which is also known to many as the Matthew Shepard Act. The vote was 249-175, and with bi-partisan backing the bill now moves to the U.S. Senate for consideration.
This civil rights bill gives the Justice Department legal authority to assist state and local jurisdictions in their investigations of bias-motivated hate crimes if the victim has been singled out based on the person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. Importantly, it also allows the Justice Department to take the lead in any such investigation or prosecution if a local jurisdiction is unwilling or unable to do so. In addition, it provides needed grants to help train law enforcement officers and to assist local jurisdictions in prosecuting hate crimes on their own.
This hate crimes bill really just expands the legal authorities that the Justice Department has long counted on to help local officials investigate and prosecute violent civil rights offenses by allowing, for the first time, federal authorities to support local investigations and prosecutions of hate crimes committed on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, gender-identity and disability. As the bill moves to the Senate, we will join our many member organizations in calling for swift passage of this important human rights bill.
But at the Council, we have always recognized that hate crimes are not just a national concern. They are also a growing international concern. In the State Department’s annual Human Rights Report, which was released in March of this year, our own U.S. embassies list human rights concerns relating to sexual orientation and gender identity in approximately 118 countries. The reported violations this year range from extreme violence, arrests of individuals based only on their sexual orientation or gender identity, state-sponsored harassment, extortion, and torture in detention, and the denial of health care, housing, education and other social services. But even these reports do not provide a full picture. An emerging body of human rights documentation shows that violence against LGBT communities is severe. Sadly it is also under-reported. That is just as true for the United States as it is for the rest of the world. The evidence is also beginning to show that LGBT-related attacks tend to be more violent than other categories of crime, and that they are often “sexualized,” in what may be a perverse attempt to “punish” the victim for transgressing sexual or gender norms.
In September, the Council worked with Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin's office and the LGBT Equality Caucus in Congress to organize a global briefing on trends in LGBT hate crimes around the world. At the briefing, Human Rights First released a survey tracking rising LGBT violence in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as the United States and Canada. The FBI and the Anti-Defamation League reported on how they track LGBT hate crimes data in the United States and how they have helped other countries to track hate crimes, especially in OSCE countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Turning finally to LGBT hate crimes in the United States, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force discussed the patchwork of state and local laws that have grown up to respond to these crimes. And the Human Rights Campaign emphasized ongoing efforts to pass the federal hate crimes bill.
In May, the Council worked with the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs to ensure that the data collected by this coalition on hate crimes data based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the United States was submitted to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) issues an annual report on hate crimes in the 56 member countries of the OSCE. The Council monitors the role of the United States government in such international bodies, and in particular, ensures that accurate information is included about sexual orientation and gender identity issues when there are reports about the United States that are issued by such inter-governmental bodies.
RELEASES ITS COUNTRY REPORTS ON HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES FOR 2008
In the Human Rights Report for 2008 (released on February 25, 2009), the State Department once again lists human rights abuses relating to sexual orientation and gender identity in well over 100 countries worldwide. The reported violations this year include murders, extreme police violence, arrests of individuals based only on their sexual orientation or gender identity, state-sponsored harassment, extortion, and abuse in detention, and the denial of health care, housing, education and other social services. The Council for Global Equality annually compiles a list of the references to sexual orientation and gender identity-related abuses and protections in the State Department’s annual report. We analyze the trends in the report and work with the staff at the State Department on continuing to improve their reporting. This year, we compiled our “Top Ten Opportunities for the US to Respond,” to give concrete examples of how the U.S. government can move from a reporting agenda to a protection agenda – for LGBT people at home and abroad.
View our press statement on the State Department's 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
COUNCIL RECOGNIZES LGBT PRIDE MONTH
During June, when many LGBT Americans are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall revolution through pride marches in U.S. cities, the Council recognizes those brave human rights defenders who are also standing up for their rights in far more hostile cities around the globe. We are saddened by the ongoing denial of basic rights to freedom of association and expression that have limited the ability of colleagues to stand up and be heard in Eastern Europe. We are disheartened by the violence that once again marked the pride march in Moscow, and by the ongoing reports of targeted LGBT violence in Iraq. At the same time, we want to mark incremental progress, and we are heartened by some of the more successful marches elsewhere in Eastern Europe, including in Bucharest and Riga, where LGBT marchers have been confronted by violence and homophobia in the past. We hope all of those who are working to promote LGBT equality in the United States and abroad, including those working to promote human rights in our U.S. Embassies overseas, will take time this spring to stand proud for Global Equality.
