Tribunal Final-2
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The International Tribunal on Human Rights Violations Against Sexual Minorities Tuesday, October 17, 1995 New York City, USA Tribunal Co-Chairs Urvashi Vaid James Hormel Tribunal Co-Sponsors The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission Community United Against Violence The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), founded in 1991, is a San Francisco-based non-governmental human rights organization. IGLHRC’s primary work is to monitor, document and mobilize responses to human rights abuses against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgendered people, people with HIV and AIDS, and those oppressed due to their sexual identities or sexual conduct with consenting adults. For more information please contact IGLHRC: 1360 Mission St., Suite 200, San Francisco, CA 94103 USA Phone +1-415-255-8680 Fax +1-415-255-8680 Community United Against Violence (CUAV) was the first organization in the United States dedicated exclusively to preventing and treating violence against and within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities. For more information please contact CUAV: 973 Market Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94103 USA Phone +1-415-777-5500 Fax +1-415-777-5565 A 30 minute video of the Tribunal is also available. Please contact IGLHRC at the above address if interested. Table of Contents Opening Remarks Charlotte Bunch, Director, Center for Women's Global Leadership 2 Testimonies Part I: Human Rights Violations Based on Sexual Orientation Herbert Mondhlani, Zimbabwe 4 Elizabeth Lim, Philippines 6 Ciprian Cucu, Romania (Translated by Scott Long) 9 Part II: HIV/AIDS and the Persecution of Sexual Minorities Alfredo Gonzalez reading testimony of Wilfredo Valencia-Palacios, El Salvador 12 Anuja Gupta, India 1 5 Part III: Human Rights Violations Based on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Daphne Scholinski, USA 1 8 Serkan Altan, Turkey 21 Mariela Muñoz, Argentina (Translated by Patricia Montoya) 23 Judges' Remarks Rory Kennedy statement in place of Kerry Kennedy-Cuomo, 27 former Executive Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Center Deputy Marta Suplicy, Member of the Brazilian Parliament and 28 Brazilian Human Rights Commission, Brazil Nomtuse Mbere, Member of the South African government delegation to 31 Beijing World Conference on Women, South Africa Gara LaMarche, Associate Director of Human Rights Watch, USA 33 Judges' Final Statement 34 4 Opening Remarks Charlotte Bunch, Director of the life, liberty, and security of person Center for Women's Global without fear of violence, torture, or Leadership, USA arbitrary imprisonment. It is a pleasure to open this his - toric event which comes at a critical All of these human rights are time both for the lesbian and gay spelled out in various UN instruments movement and for the United Nations. and conventions and elaborated further For 50 years, since the UN was in UN world conference declarations founded and its charter of nondiscrimi- and other treaty body communications. nation proclaimed in 1945, and for 47 Yet, when these rights are violated years since the Universal Declaration of because of a person's sexual orienta- Human Rights was signed by all nations tion, the world bodies and most gov- of the world in 1948, there has ernments remain silent or even declare remained a conspiracy of silence about that sexual minorities do not deserve the human rights of sexual minorities. human rights and protections and that The UN, governments, and most of the we can be treated as less than human. human rights community around the This implication that we are not fully world have turned away from and human is then an invitation to more avoided discussion of the human rights violence and abuse. of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans - As you will hear in today's testi - gendered individuals. They have chosen monies and as Rachel Rosenbloom not to see the many violations of spells out so clearly in her introduction human rights principles in this area that to Unspoken Rules: Sexual Orientation they espouse elsewhere: and Women's Human Rights, published by IGLHRC for the IV World Conference •the right of sexual minorities to on Women in Beijing, all of these funda- freedom of assembly and to free- mental human rights are violated daily dom of speech; in the lives of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, •their right to equal protection under and transgendered people all over the the law and to non discrimination, world. Additionally, such violations are as the Universal Declaration states often questions of life and death and "without distinction of any kind, not trivial behavioral or lifestyle choices such as race, sex...or other status;" as some would imply. There has been a (art.2) wall of silence erected around these •the right to work, to health, and to abuses that has proven stronger than education; the Berlin Wall, but we are here today •the right to bodily integrity and because cracks have been made in that determination of one's sexuality; wall and we seek to make it crumble •the right to free choice in marriage further. and family; Over the past five years, the •the right to asylum from persecu- women's human rights movement has tion and to refugee status; been working to end the silence sur- •and most basic of all, the right to 2 Opening Remarks rounding abuses based on gender. This moved to an issue only spoken to by movement shares many common con- the Dutch government in 1985. So in cerns with the movement for lesbian 1995, the issue moved into an extraor- and gay human rights—not to mention dinary debate with 30 countries from sharing many women. Both of these all regions openly supporting lesbian movements address how distinctions rights. Some even declared that they between violations in private and public considered the issue to be included in and the reluctance of the human rights the prohibition of discrimination based community to address sexuality and on "other status"— already in the rigid gender identities have kept such Universal Declaration and the Beijing violations invisible or even sanctioned document. them. The Beijing Platform for Action Women have utilized tribunals also specifically recognized: like this one both locally and at the UN World Conferences in Vienna, Cairo, •that various forms of family exist Copenhagen, and Beijing: (p. 30) •the human right of women to have •to break down that wall of silence; control over and decide freely mat- •to make such violations visible and ters related to their sexuality (p. concrete in terms of how they 97) impact our lives; •and to demand accountability for Not a revolution, but a big crack. their neglect. Commitment to the human The demand that "women's rights of sexual minorities has also rights be understood as human rights" emerged from some other struggles, gained ground at the World Conference most notably, as evidenced in the for Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, recent South African Constitution which and was ratified in Beijing where many, is the first to include protection from including Hilary Rodham Clinton, discrimination on the basis of sexual acknowledged that the conference was orientation. Indeed the open participa- about the human rights of women and tion of lesbians and gays in that his - how they are violated in many areas. toric struggle against human rights With that acceptance has come a grad- abuse based on race opened the way ual opening for understanding better to the inclusion of lesbian and gay that lesbian and gay rights are also rights in the vision of human rights that human rights. emerged out of this liberation move- In Beijing, this issue advanced to ment. It is only as we speak openly and the first open discussion of sexual ori - name the abuses done to lesbians, entation and lesbian human rights in gays, and other sexual minorities and the UN. Lesbianism has always been demand accountability for them that raised by NGOs at the UN World we can hope to see them included on Conferences for Women, but it has future human rights agendas. never before been on the inter-govern- The vision of this tribunal is that mental conference agenda. It began as as more people of all genders and sexu- a scandal at the first Mexico City al persuasions understand human rights Women's Conference in 1975 and violations and discrimination based on 3 Testimonies Part I. Human Rights Violations Based on Sexual Orientation sexual orientation, they will join forces because of the colour of my skin. to end these abuses just as many les- Blacks were regarded as second class bians and gays struggle for the human citizens under the racial government of rights of others. The only hope for a Ian Smith. The apartheid of race came future realization of human rights for all to an end in 1980 with the birth of is in acting on our understanding that Zimbabwe under the leadership of human rights are indeed universal, indi- President Robert Mugabe. visible, inalienable, and interrelated. If Today, there is racial equality in the human rights of any group are left Zimbabwe. But today there is another behind, the human rights of all are form of apartheid in Zimbabwe. This is incomplete. the apartheid of gay oppres- Our challenge to the sion. As a gay man in UN today is to exert its ethi - Zimbabwe, I have no place, I cal leadership on human have no voice, I have no sta- rights in its next 50 years. tus simply because of my To do so, it must begin now sexual orientation. to redress this neglect and Homosexuality is illegal under to move toward a truly inclu- the Sexual Offenses Act sive interpretation and imple- which classifies gayness mentation of its human rights together with bestiality, instruments and mandates.