标题: Global LGBT rights conference opens in Mexican capital
新闻来源: Washington Blade
http://goo.gl/aMwR7N
MEXICO CITY — A global LGBT rights conference that formally opened on
Tuesday in the Mexican capital has drawn hundreds of advocates from 50
countries.
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission Executive Director
Jessica Stern, Ty Cobb of the Human Rights Campaign, Council for Global
Equality Chair Mark Bromley and Chloe Schwenke of the D.C.-based Freedom
House are among the nearly 500 people who are attending the International
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) World Conference
in Mexico City.
Mariela Castro Espín, daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro, is also in
the Mexican capital with a delegation of more than a dozen LGBT rights
advocates from the Communist country.
“ILGA is a way to connect with other LGBTI activists from all over the
world,” Basu Guragain of the Federation of Sexual and Gender Minorities
Nepal told the Washington Blade. “We can get an idea about what is going on
around the world regarding LGBTI rights.”
Tamara Adrián, a Venezuelan trans advocate who is running for ILGA co-
secretary general, said two of her goals during the conference are to
connect with younger trans activists and to “enforce” connections between
activists in different regions of the world.
Caleb Orozco, co-founder of the United Belize Advocacy Movement, an HIV/AIDS
advocacy group, told the Blade he hopes the gathering will allow him to
highlight U.S. religious organizations that support efforts defending the
English-speaking Central American country’s anti-sodomy law. Orozco added
the conference also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of efforts to
extend rights to LGBT people in Belize and throughout the Western Hemisphere.
“The meeting space is about an opportunity to build alliances and share
experiences,” he said.
The Cuban delegation later this week is expected to formally announce it will
seek to host the 2016 ILGA World Conference in their country.
Supporters of Mariela Castro, who is director of Cuba’s National Center for
Sex Education, are quick to note that she has spearheaded a number of efforts
over the last decade to promote acceptance of LGBT Cubans and to curb the
spread of HIV/AIDS on the island. These include a condom distribution campaign
and the country’s national health care system offering free sex-reassignment
surgery to trans Cubans.
Mariela Castro was also president of the local committee that organized an
ILGA conference on the island in May that LGBT rights advocates from Latin
America and the Caribbean attended.
Cuban-born Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is among those who
frequently criticize Mariela Castro and her father’s government over its
human rights record.
ILGA Co-Secretary General Gloria Careaga Pérez told the Blade on Tuesday
she feels “it would be great” for Cuba to host her organization’s biennial
global conference in 2016.
“Cuba is making very important changes and they want to go forward,” she
said, noting efforts to add sexual orientation to the country’s labor law
and the government’s work with families on LGBT-specific issues. “They
have really interesting proposals that we (in Mexico) haven’t worked with.”
Gathering ‘a boost’ for Mexican LGBT activists
The conference is taking place against the backdrop of lingering global
outrage over Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act and other anti-LGBT laws
that have taken effect in Nigeria and several other nations over the last
year.
Russia’s LGBT rights record that includes a law banning the promotion of
so-called gay propaganda to minors overshadowed the 2014 Winter Olympics
that took place earlier this year in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Homosexuality remains criminalized in more than 70 countries around the world.
Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Iran are among the nations in which those
found guilty of consensual same-sex sexual acts face the death penalty.
Same-sex couples have been able to legally marry and adopt children in Mexico
City since 2010. The Mexican capital’s comprehensive anti-discrimination law
includes both sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
“This is an open city, a gay-friendly city,” Careaga told the Blade.
She said the Mexican capital’s pro-LGBT laws and initiatives are among the
reasons ILGA decided to hold its biennial global conference in the city.
Careaga said she feels Mexico City officials can do even more to advance
these issues.
“We still have not seem as many public policies as we would like to see,”
she said, noting the discussions around public policy and other issues that
took place before the conference officially began. “We want to push our
government and specifically the city to come with a real plan of action,
not only with some wording on the legal framework.”
Progress on LGBT-specific issues has also taken place outside Mexico City
and on the national level, but at a slower pace.
Lawmakers in the state of Coahuila last month overwhelmingly approved a
same-sex marriage bill.
The Mexican Supreme Court in recent years has struck down gay nuptials bans
in Baja California and Oaxaca. Same-sex couples in Colima, Quintana Roo and
other Mexican states have also sought legal recourse through the country’s
judicial system to allow them to marry.
The Mexican Supreme Court in January ruled same-sex spouses of those who
receive benefits under the country’s social security system must receive
the same benefits as their heterosexual counterparts. A gay couple who hopes
to marry in Mexico in May filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights in D.C.
Benjamin Medrano in September 2013 became Mexico’s first openly gay mayor
after voters in Fresnillo in the state of Zacatecas elected him.
Mexico’s anti-discrimination law includes sexual orientation, but mistreatment
and violence against LGBT Mexicans remains pervasive throughout the country.
The Committee to Protect Journalists notes more than 70 reporters and others
who work for media outlets have been killed in Mexico since 1992, with drug
cartels and organized crime syndicates committing the majority of these
murders.The nationwide outrage over last month’s disappearance of 43 college
students in the state of Guerrero has dominated Mexican media during the ILGA
conference.
Schwenke told the Blade on Tuesday she feels it is difficult for Mexican
LGBT rights advocates to gain attention for their efforts amid ongoing
concerns over the missing college students, the persecution of journalists
and other issues in the country. She nevertheless said she supports the
decision to hold the conference in Mexico City.
“There’s a range of really pronounced human rights issues that are not
being solved anytime soon,” said Schwenke. “It’s really hard for LGBTI
people in that space to get their issues taken seriously.
[The conference] has been a good boost for them.”
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