Online talk with Julia Ehrt from ILGA World and Helmut Metzner from the LSVD on 2 June 2020
In the first event of the series “Leave no one behind! Development cooperation and LGBTI perspectives”, Julia Ehrt, director of programs at ILGA World (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association), gave an overview of the structure and tasks of the Human Rights Council and of ILGA’s activities.
Trans women in particular, but also other members of the LGBTI community, face multiple forms of discrimination and violence on an everyday basis in Columbia. Mauri Balanta Jaramillo, a fellowship holder with the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), reported on this situation in an online talk with Klaus Jetz, the executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany (LSVD), which was attended by around 50 people.
What does development cooperation have to do with lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, trans and intersex people (LGBTI)?
Online talk with Doug Kerr, Dignity Network Canada, Dr. Arn Sauer, researcher, Sarah Kohrt, Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation, and Helmut Metzner, LSVD (host) on 2 July 2020
Web-talk with Rashima Kwatra, Advocacy Advisor at RFSL Sweden Beijing +25 and LBTQ engagement at the Generation Equality Process
When: Friday, 27 November, 11:30–12:15 CET, new date: Friday, 19 February 2021, 12:00–12:45 CET event canceled and postponed to due to illness
Who: Rashima Kwatra, Advocacy Advisor, RFSL Sweden
Moderators: Sarah Kohrt,Hirschfeld-Eddy-Foundation, Hala Maurice, Human Rights Activist and Researcher
This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the monumental Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action of 1995, which is considered to be the most pioneering agenda for advancing women and girl’s rights. Since then, the agenda has been adopted by 189 governments as a sign of commitment to advocate for gender equality around the globe.
How is civil society advocating at the UN for the rights of LBTQ women? How can successes achieved by e.g. the CEDAW Committee be used to move national policies forward? What experience has been gained in strategic processes and community-based lobbying? ILGA World held a web seminar on this topic together with IWRAW Asia Pacific and RFSL in April 2020.
Beitrag (deutsch)
Einladung (deutsch)
What does the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” – or SRHR for short – actually mean? What role do its topics play in international discussions of human rights? Where are these issues debated and negotiated, and who are the main actors? Katrin Erlingsen from the DSW — Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung explained the concept of SRHR in a web seminar from the Hirschfeld-Eddy Foundation.
This article covers a side event organised by GIN-SSOGIE at the UN Human Rights Council on “Using inclusive narratives around faith and tradition to support human rights advocacy on the continent”.
Key topics at a high-level online event held by the UN LGBTI Core Group during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly in late September 2020 were intersectionality, protecting the rights of LGBTI people, and lessons learned from the pandemic.
“While all LGBTI persons experience discrimination and exclusion, we do not experience discrimination and violence in the same way,” said Jessica Stern at the opening of the high-level event held by the UN LGBTI Core Group during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly in late September 2020. The UN LGBTI Core Group is an informal group of UN member states that was founded in 2008 with Germany involved from the start (see boxed info text).
The year 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In early October 2020 the anniversary was celebrated during the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York with a high-level event and many speakers.
A key result of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 was its Platform for Action, in which 189 countries specified twelve strategic goals for gender equality. Although important progress has been made since 1995 such as a decrease in maternal mortality rates, the speakers at the high-level event at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly all agreed that not enough has been done.
“Yet no country can claim to have achieved gender parity, and the current crisis threatens to erode hard-earned gains,” said the president of the 75th General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir, at the event entitled “Accelerating the realization of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls.” UN General Secretary António Guterres also warned of setbacks. “Covid-19 could wipe out a generation of fragile progress toward gender equality.”
How can different types of families be better protected during and after the Covid-19 pandemic? Who decides what a family is, and (how) is religion being instrumentalised for this purpose? What obligations do UN member states have regarding family diversity? These are just some of the questions that civil society organizations discussed at a side event for the UN Human Rights Council.
“Our goals are to make family diversity more visible and to highlight the experience and reality of rainbow families in different regional, cultural and religious contexts,” says Maria von Känel, co-founder and board member of International Family Equality Day (IFED), a global network for family diversity.
“Throughout human history there have always been different models of family and community life,” adds Simon Petitjean from the Global Interfaith Network. “The UN system and its states have a responsibility to respect the human rights of all family members without distinction of any kind, and this is of particular importance in times of crisis when inequalities are heightened and reinforced.”