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GLBTQI rights
IDAHO
The International Day Against Homophobia
We are sending you this email to promote that Saturday 17th May 2008 is International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). This is the first time ACON, through it’s Lesbian and Gay Anti Violence Project (AVP), is promoting the importance of this day.
IDAHO is held globally on May 17th every year. It is a relatively new event (pioneered by Fondation Émergence in Quebec, Canada as a national event in 2003) and is gaining global momentum. IDAHO first took place internationally in 2005, marking the World Health Organization’s removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1991.
IDAHO is a time to combine efforts to fight prejudice and contribute to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) people’s well-being.
IDAHO aims to raise the awareness of the effects of homophobia in our communities, to generate change and to celebrate sexual diversity and gender identities.
We encourage you to forward this email to your networks and colleagues as a demonstration of your support for IDAHO.
ACON has had a long and successful history of providing services and programs to GLBT communities. We recognise that sexual orientation is a social determinant of health, similar to gender, ethnicity, or socio economic status. ACON sees homophobia as being a fundamental impact on the health of our communities and we aim to reduce homophobia through a variety of our projects and services.
Homophobia is the hostility, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, or fear of lesbian, gay or bisexual people, or those perceived to be. It is an aversion to, or discrimination against, homosexuality or GLB people and describes the rejection of homosexuality and sexual minorities. It also refers to a refusal of people, organisations, governments and others to confront non-heterosexual sexual orientation.
Homophobia has a direct impact on everyone’s wellbeing and safety, but specifically on the lives of gays and lesbians who may suffer discrimination or abuse in their families, at work or elsewhere. Everyday examples of homophobia are common and extreme forms include violence or murder (‘hate crimes'). Homophobia is often legitimised by institutional homophobia such as refusing lesbian and gay rights to legal equality.
Click here for links, information on IDAHO and homophobia, and things you or your organisation can do. Or click here to go to the AVP website to learn about what we do or make a report of homophobic abuse, harassment or violence.
The fight against homophobia requires everyone’s help.
Thanks for supporting IDAHO and taking a stand against homophobia.
If you want more information please contact Robert Knapman at the Lesbian and Gay Anti Violence Project at ACON on (02) 206 2066.
Any emailed comments are also very welcome and will help in our evaluation and work.
****************************
And then there's this...
New report claims 86 countries criminalise same-sex acts
On July 19th 2005 Iranian teenagers Mahmoud Asgari, 15 and Ayaz Marhoni, 17, were hanged for perverting Islamic law.
The International Lesbian and Gay Association’s 2008 report on state-sponsored homophobia says that to be lesbian or gay risks jail time in 86 countries and death penalty in seven. The figure normally quoted is 77 countries.
The research deals only with legislation criminalising consensual sexual acts between persons of the same sex in private above the age of consent. Laws dealing with such acts in public, with under aged people, with force or by any other reason are not included. In addition to those 86 countries there are six provinces or territorial units which also punish homosexuality with imprisonment, said ILGA.
A 30-year-old world federation, ILGA consists of 670 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex groups from more than 100 countries.
"Although many of the countries listed in the report do not systematically implement those laws, their mere existence reinforces a culture where a significant portion of the citizens needs to hide from the rest of the population out of fear," said Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, co-secretary general of ILGA.
"A culture where hatred and violence are justified by the state and force people into invisibility or into denying who they truly are.
"Whether exported by colonial empires or the result of legislations culturally shaped by religious beliefs, if not deriving directly from a conservative interpretation of religious texts, homophobic laws are the fruit of a certain time and context in history.
"Homophobia is cultural. Homophobia, lesbophobia and transphobia are not inborn. People learn them as they grow."
ILGA's 2008 report on state homophobia around the world is available at www.ilga.org
[complete article, source]
(click to embiggen)
The International Day Against Homophobia
We are sending you this email to promote that Saturday 17th May 2008 is International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO). This is the first time ACON, through it’s Lesbian and Gay Anti Violence Project (AVP), is promoting the importance of this day.
IDAHO is held globally on May 17th every year. It is a relatively new event (pioneered by Fondation Émergence in Quebec, Canada as a national event in 2003) and is gaining global momentum. IDAHO first took place internationally in 2005, marking the World Health Organization’s removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1991.
IDAHO is a time to combine efforts to fight prejudice and contribute to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) people’s well-being.
IDAHO aims to raise the awareness of the effects of homophobia in our communities, to generate change and to celebrate sexual diversity and gender identities.
We encourage you to forward this email to your networks and colleagues as a demonstration of your support for IDAHO.
ACON has had a long and successful history of providing services and programs to GLBT communities. We recognise that sexual orientation is a social determinant of health, similar to gender, ethnicity, or socio economic status. ACON sees homophobia as being a fundamental impact on the health of our communities and we aim to reduce homophobia through a variety of our projects and services.
Homophobia is the hostility, disapproval, prejudice, hatred, or fear of lesbian, gay or bisexual people, or those perceived to be. It is an aversion to, or discrimination against, homosexuality or GLB people and describes the rejection of homosexuality and sexual minorities. It also refers to a refusal of people, organisations, governments and others to confront non-heterosexual sexual orientation.
Homophobia has a direct impact on everyone’s wellbeing and safety, but specifically on the lives of gays and lesbians who may suffer discrimination or abuse in their families, at work or elsewhere. Everyday examples of homophobia are common and extreme forms include violence or murder (‘hate crimes'). Homophobia is often legitimised by institutional homophobia such as refusing lesbian and gay rights to legal equality.
Click here for links, information on IDAHO and homophobia, and things you or your organisation can do. Or click here to go to the AVP website to learn about what we do or make a report of homophobic abuse, harassment or violence.
The fight against homophobia requires everyone’s help.
Thanks for supporting IDAHO and taking a stand against homophobia.
If you want more information please contact Robert Knapman at the Lesbian and Gay Anti Violence Project at ACON on (02) 206 2066.
Any emailed comments are also very welcome and will help in our evaluation and work.
****************************
And then there's this...
New report claims 86 countries criminalise same-sex acts
On July 19th 2005 Iranian teenagers Mahmoud Asgari, 15 and Ayaz Marhoni, 17, were hanged for perverting Islamic law.
The International Lesbian and Gay Association’s 2008 report on state-sponsored homophobia says that to be lesbian or gay risks jail time in 86 countries and death penalty in seven. The figure normally quoted is 77 countries.
The research deals only with legislation criminalising consensual sexual acts between persons of the same sex in private above the age of consent. Laws dealing with such acts in public, with under aged people, with force or by any other reason are not included. In addition to those 86 countries there are six provinces or territorial units which also punish homosexuality with imprisonment, said ILGA.
A 30-year-old world federation, ILGA consists of 670 lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex groups from more than 100 countries.
"Although many of the countries listed in the report do not systematically implement those laws, their mere existence reinforces a culture where a significant portion of the citizens needs to hide from the rest of the population out of fear," said Rosanna Flamer-Caldera, co-secretary general of ILGA.
"A culture where hatred and violence are justified by the state and force people into invisibility or into denying who they truly are.
"Whether exported by colonial empires or the result of legislations culturally shaped by religious beliefs, if not deriving directly from a conservative interpretation of religious texts, homophobic laws are the fruit of a certain time and context in history.
"Homophobia is cultural. Homophobia, lesbophobia and transphobia are not inborn. People learn them as they grow."
ILGA's 2008 report on state homophobia around the world is available at www.ilga.org
[complete article, source]
(click to embiggen)