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Policies

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people’s interests in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  • Date / 1999
  • Location Ratified / Mumbai, India
  • Ratifying Body / World Humanist Congress
  • Status / Pending-review

Members of humanist organizations from around the world represented at the Congress/General Assembly of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, January 1999, in Mumbai (India), express as their opinion the following:

RECALLING

RECOGNIZING

NOTING THAT

DECIDING AS A GENERAL PRINCIPLE FOR ITS POLICY AND ACTIONS:
The IHEU will jointly with its member organizations endorse, defend and promote gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people’s interests in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a regular element of their overall endorsement, defense and promotion of human rights.

OPERATIONALIZING THIS GENERAL PRINCIPLE AS FOLLOWS:

  1. IHEU calls on the UN and other international bodies to:
    1. Condemn all discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
    2. Take all possible measures to ensure that member states end all discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
      Call upon member states to enact and enforce legislation that protects the dignity and worth of the human person, in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity.
    3. Investigate patterns of murders and violations of human rights perpetrated against individuals and groups on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status and address such with member states.
    4. Solicit specific information about the status and current position of sexual minorities in reports submitted to all human rights monitoring bodies.
    5. Produce, disseminate and promote the application of educational materials countering discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
  2. IHEU calls on governments to:
    1. Take legal actions against any individual or group, including government representatives, who subject gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to discriminatory violence including torture and rape.
    2. Enact and enforce legislation that protects any citizen from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status in all realms of life, including employment, housing, health care and education.
    3. Repeal laws and change policies and administrative practices that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or marital status.
    4. Afford same-sex partnerships full protection of the law, equal to marital and other legally recognized mixed-sex partnerships, with regard to pension, inheritance, taxation, social security, custody and adoption, donor insemination and other services, in which discriminatory policies and practices currently exist.
    5. Ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and all other international instruments protecting human rights.
    6. Revise laws, policies and administrative practices on refugees and migrants to ensure gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people equal treatment with regard to immigration and asylum, including the right not to be returned to a place or situation of persecution.
    7. Combat ‘social cleansing’ manifesting itself in murder and forced disappearances of male and female prostitutes, street children, disabled people and other socially discriminated persons.
    8. Include information on the extent to which gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms in reports submitted to appropriate international and regional treaty-monitoring bodies, as well as steps being taken at national and local levels to remove obstacles to their full enjoyment of these rights and freedoms, and provisions made for their protection.
      1. Recognize that same-sex sexuality is no disorder, nor disease, let alone reason for forced psycho-medical treatment;
      2. Revise medical definitions of male and female homosexuality in accordance with current World Health Organization guidelines; and
      3. Ensure that all health care materials, campaigns and services relate to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and their interests.
  3. IHEU calls on its member organizations and other NGOs to:
    1. Work in coalition with existing organizations promoting and protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and trangendered people’s interests in human rights
    2. Promote awareness both inside and outside their organization of barriers and forms of discrimination that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people face in participating in public life, and how to counter these.
    3. Promote information and educational materials promoting the equality and inalienability of human rights, irrespective of sexual orientation or gender identity.
    4. Stimulate the development of positive images of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and lifestyles as role models for young people.
    5. Institute policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and acting on them in all aspects of the organization’s work.

 

Congress / General Assembly 1999

Suggested academic reference

'Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people's interests in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights', Humanists International, World Humanist Congress, Mumbai, India, 1999

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