Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights

RIGHTS: Activists Accuse U.N. of Cold-Shouldering Gay Rights

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 4 2003 (IPS) - U.N. Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, remembers when participants at a major human rights conference decided in a rare political gesture to permit non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to take the floor.

”But when members of the Coalition on Gay and Lesbian Rights asked for the microphone” at the 1993 event in Vienna, recounts Lewis, ”they were heckled.”

What was distressing, he told reporters Monday, is that the activists were shouted down not by observers or fellow NGOs, but by government delegations.

”It reminded me of just how far we had yet to go,” noted Lewis, a former Canadian envoy to the United Nations.

”Well we’ve come some of the way from that day to this,” he added, pointing out that his home country now recognises same-sex marriages.

Lewis spoke hours before the United Nations Gay, Lesbian or Bisexual Employees Organisation (UNGLOBE) hosted an ”unprecedented” seminar in the precincts of the United Nations Monday calling for a stronger U.N. role in protecting the rights of lesbians and gays both inside and outside the world body.

The plea came amidst several new developments relating to gay rights globally: leaders of the Episcopal Church in the U.S. state of New Hampshire last week approved the selection of their first openly gay bishop; in the same week, U.S. President George W. Bush condemned same-sex marriage, along with the Vatican, which also spoke out against any recognition of gay and lesbian rights.

The United Nations, an institution that has relentlessly fought for the politically oppressed and trumpets the primacy of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), has refused to recognise the rights of homosexuals and lesbians.

A U.N. committee on NGOs has continually rejected a request by the International Lesbian and Gay Association for official NGO status.

The battle for gay rights is a ”politically charged” issue at the United Nations, said Widney Brown of Human Rights Watch (HRW), and some member countries – particularly from southern Africa – practice ”state-sponsored homophobia”.

Brown told reporters that political leaders of at least two U.N. states – Zimbabwe and Namibia – have made a career out of attacking gays and lesbians, calling them ”less than humans and worse than dogs”. ”They have said that gays do not deserve any human rights – and should be exterminated,” she added.

According to published reports, more than 70 of the United Nations’ 191 member states have a total ban on homosexuality.

Svend Robinson, the first openly gay member of the opposition New Democratic Party in the Canadian parliament, told the media that a resolution on gay rights was derailed at the U.N. Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Geneva last April because it was opposed by five Muslim countries – Pakistan, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

The nations tabled amendments that ”gutted the resolution,” Robinson said.

Islamic nations that have opposed gay rights at the United Nations have historically received support from the Vatican and predominantly Catholic countries, as well as from the United States.

The resolution, which was sponsored by Brazil with support from 19 of the 53 member countries of the HRC, called on member states to promote and protect the human rights ”of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation”.

Robinson vowed that the issue of gay rights will again be taken up at the next session of the HRC in April next year.

The United Nations, he said, is one of the last major frontiers on human rights. ”It is a hot issue. But for the first time we are planning to send a strong, clear and powerful signal that the United Nations must speak out on discrimination (against gays and lesbians).”

A spokesperson for UNGLOBE, who asked to not be identified, told IPS that under U.N. staff rules, the organisation is permitted to lobby only the organisation’s administration, not member states or the media.

He questioned why the United Nations does not accord equal rights to its gay, lesbian and bi-sexual employees when the UDHR says that everyone is entitled to all of its rights and freedoms, ”without distinction of any kind”.

The World Bank, a member of the U.N. family, he added, provides full benefits for same-sex partners. But the United Nations does not.

UNGLOBE is challenging the United Nations on several fronts: ”Why,” it asks, ”does the United Nations fail to recognise the committed, non-marital relationships of these employees?”

”Why does the United Nations deny visas, pension, health, and other benefits to the loved ones of its gay, lesbian and bi-sexual employees?”

”Why does the United Nations not take firm action to end the many cases of overt discrimination against its gay, lesbian and bi-sexual employees?”

”And why is the U.N.’s record on these issues so far behind that of the World Bank and other international organisations?”

Mark Malloch Brown, head of the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), said that persecution and discrimination based on sexual orientation is unfortunately still pervasive.

In a statement released Monday, he added: ”Worldwide, many governments are taking progressive action on these issues. Within the U.N. system, the issue of domestic partnership is now being reviewed.”

Asked about Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s views on gay rights, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters Annan has been meeting with his senior advisers on the question of U.N. entitlements and benefits, which under current rules apply only to traditional spouses.

Current U.N. practice, he added, is based on the national laws of the staff member in question. Member states ”have strongly divergent views on the subject, which the secretary-general is considering”, added Eckhard.

”I know that this debate has been going on,” Annan told reporters last week. “Even my own church, the Anglican Church, seems to be engaged in this.”

Annan said be believes that ”individuals should be allowed to make their own choices and that we should be careful not to draw conclusions, or adopt prejudicial attitudes, towards people for their choices and preferences”.

”That is not something that I think the organisation should get involved in,” he added.

(END/IPS/WD/HD/TD/ML/03)