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Fellows share their views on the day’s key talking points

Fellows of the seminar ‘LGBT and Human Rights: New Challenges, Next Steps’ tackle the issues surrounding the challenges of legislation for LGBT human rights at a global, regional and national level and how that impacts on a societal and community level.

“Colleagues from global North feel they should have special rapporteur, but the global South feel this isn’t the time and could backfire.

"Some special rapporteurs are already not invited to our countries; this rapporteur would not be invited to Zimbabwe, for example.

"But people from North feel the South are delaying things by not agreeing to an office or rapporteur. ”

“In India the sodomy law took three years of inter-movement talking to draft a law without using sexual orientation in.

"Instead the law states ‘Any consenting adult acting in private should not be criminalized,’ thus offering protection against marital rape, incest and sex with minors [as well as consenting adults in same-sex relationships].”

“Law is imagined as single barrier to progress. This narrow focus on the law has stopped people from thinking of other ways of engaging.

"Sometimes there will be opportunities where government passes something that sounds good but the lived realities of the intended beneficiaries mean that they aren’t able to benefit because the change has not happened [in society].

"South Africa [which has some of the most progressive laws in Africa] has one of highest murder rates for LGBT people in the continent as opposed to other countries where illegality continues.

"South Africa still has to do work that enables change to be stable once it takes place in law.”

“Any strategy is time specific; had South Africa gone through its struggle [against Apartheid] today, the outcome [including its progressive constitution] might have been different.

"The framing needs to be context specific. We know it is time-bound because it capitalizes on the conversation that happens then.

"Multiple discourses are happening concurrently; you need to tap into discourses and make them work for you.”

“Many argue that the [LGBT] community isn’t unanimous; but why should there be only one voice?

"These issues should not look as though they are imposed on us by the West. I haven’t met people or organizations that really have a strategy; their actions are mostly led by instinct and ad hoc actions.

"We need to take time to decide on short, long, medium term goals. Instead we are just responding to the actions from our opponents.”

“One of best ways to resolve this issue – is UN imposing things on us? – is to give more power to local activists and people who can find a balance between human rights and local discourses.

"Activists in particular culture know that culture, its traditions, the legal language of that place more than outsiders.

"They would be best placed to take UN resolutions, appropriate, adopt and turn them into something relevant for that culture and context - bringing global and local together.”