UN calls for worldwide decriminalisation of homosexuality

A new United Nations (UN) report has called for laws criminalising consensual same-sex sexual activity to be repealed around the world.

In the new report, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein has said that LGBT people are victims of “pervasive violent abuse, harassment and discrimination” in all regions of the world, citing hundreds of hate-related killings, the Guardian reports.

Mr al-Hussein added that, while progress has been made since the UN’s historic first report into the rights LGBT people globally in 2011, the gains had been overshadowed by continued state-sponsored persecution and attacks made against them.

It states that in 2012 alone, 310 documented murders occured in Brazil “in which homophobia or transphobia was a motive”, while the trans murder monitoring project listed 1,612 murders in 62 countries between 2008 and 2014.

According to the report, at least 76 countries retain anti-gay laws used to criminalise and persecute people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

The report made 24 recommendations, calling for all state worldwide to decriminalise consenting same-sex activity between adults, ban ‘gay cure’ therapy and the forced sterilization of trans people, and to enact legisaltion to protect LGBT people from hate speech and discrimination.

It also called on states to give legal recognition to same-sex couples and their children -implying, but not stating, equal marriage – as well as providing age-appropriate sex education to all, guaranteeing asylum for any LGBTI people whose lives may be in danger due to their sexuality, and ending forced genital and anal examinations to ‘prove’ whether someone is LGBT.

In This Article: