New General Comments on SRHR and conditions in work – UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has published this week two General Comments: General Comment 22 on sexual and reproductive health and General Comment 23 on just and favourable conditions of work. Both mention SOGIESC issues, with General Comment 22 making extensive references.
Read moreLebanon: How Public Health Can Affect LGBT Rights
When I think about LGBT rights in Lebanon, a swinging pendulum comes to mind. Slow progress met with backlash and arbitrary detention. Article 534 of the penal code, a remnant from French colonization, criminalizes same-sex relationship; similar laws of indecency also criminalize transgender populations.
Read moreIDS new bulletin: Connecting Perspectives on Women’s Empowerment
Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement. And we have much to celebrate today on International Women’s Day, not least the recent formulation of the first ever internationally agreed stand-alone goal on gender equality. However, progress towards gender parity remains dismal in many places and debates around women’s empowerment are […]
Read moreUS: Estimates of Transgender Populations in States with Legislation Impacting Transgender People
These bills would limit access to single-sex restrooms and locker rooms at schools and in public places; limit protections based on gender identity; permit individuals and businesses to discriminate against transgender people based on religious and moral beliefs.
Read moreGender incongruence of childhood in the ICD-11: controversies, proposal, and rationale
As part of the development of the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), WHO appointed a Working Group on Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health to recommend changes necessary in the classification of mental and behavioural disorders in ICD-10 that are related to sexuality and gender identity. This Personal View focuses on the […]
Read moreReport on the UN Human Rights Council’s resolution on the Protection of the family
The present report, by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 29/22.
Read moreNew report maps West African LGBTQ organizing
Though funding for LGBTQ activism in West Africa has historically focused on gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM), the scan shows that more broad-based LGBTQ organizations are emerging. Several of these nascent groups are led by queer-identified women and gender non-conforming people.
Read moreHuman rights contestations: sexual orientation and gender identity
This article asks if and why sexual orientation and gender identity-related rights should connect to a human rights framework. To answer that question it begins by addressing how we understand what makes human rights resonate or not resonate and if addressing a contentious issue such as sexual orientation or gender identity from within a human rights frame advances or detracts from such resonance.
Read moreThe sexual politics in February 2016
In February, there were good news to report from both Haiti and Europe. In the case of Haiti, the Penal Code reform is underway and the draft document approved by a committee of juridical experts includes a provision that legalizes abortion on the basis of public health concerns and freedom of women. Although this is […]
Read moreGender, Sexuality and Social Justice: What’s Law Got to Do with It?
This Collection offers multiple routes to sexuality and gender justice and numerous suggestions of what sexuality and gender justice could be in a plurality of contexts. It also suggests that there are many potential pitfalls and barriers to justice or progress. What this Collection highlights, however, is that by listening carefully to each other and by paying careful attention to the needs of those working on the ground, we give ourselves the best chances of success, individually and collectively.
Read moreWalking the Tightrope: Poetry and Prose by LGBTQ Writers from Africa
Among the first of its kind, this book is composed of works by writers from different parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, including first and second generation Africans in the diaspora. With this anthology, the editors seek to challenge and engage individuals and institutions that consider homosexuality immoral. In many African countries, homosexuals are subject to corporal […]
Read moreGay rights are human rights
The human rights of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer) people have reached centre stage. Curative petitions have been referred to a Constitution Bench with observations by Chief Justice of India (CJI) T.S. Thakur that “the issues sought to be raised are of considerable importance and public interest …”.
Read moreCivil Society from the BRICS: Emerging Roles in the New International Development Landscape
This report focuses on ‘civil society’ in just one of the many senses in which the term is used: the sense summarised by Edwards (2009) as referring to ‘the world of associational life’ (rather than alternative conceptualisations of civil society as ‘the good society’ or ‘the public sphere’).
Read moreDisability and sex work: developing affinities through decriminalization
This article argues that strong policy frameworks are required to support the health and well-being of sex workers, disabled people, and disabled sex workers. Through an examination of the context of sex work in Canada, it articulates the flaws of sex work criminalization and the persistent barriers that criminalization creates.
Read moreThailand: Doctors must heed abortion needs
Read the article by Piyapa Praditpan and Kamheang Chaturachinda examining the situation of Thai women who, despite abortion being legal since the 1950s, continue to die from unsafe abortion.
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