Rapporteur report
KC 3: Intensifying involvement of affected individuals and communities report by Gail Steckley
This session looked at two cases where criminalization is being challenged by community members and leaders. Blue Diamond in Nepal represents and supports members of the LGBT community; and the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective led a successful movement to decriminalize sex work.
Joanne Csete opened the session by reading a message from G. Azzi of Lebanon, who was unable to attend the conference. Recent progress on LGBT issues in Lebanon has been completed halted by the renewed conflict and will be severely impeded for the foreseeable future as the country recovers.
Joanne set the context by highlighting the widespread use of "stigma and discrimination" as a code for human rights abuses. They are pervasive, but criminalization creates "the most direct impediments to meaningful participation and to access to life-saving treatments." Criminalization is a more intractable form of human rights abuse - yet many in positions of influence will not even utter the word "criminalization" for fear of having to discuss decriminalization.
Sunil Pant presented a brief history of Blue Diamond in Nepal. This organization represents and supports LGBT members in a setting where arrest, detention without charge, and police brutality are commonplace. 54% of sexual and gender minority individuals surveyed reported facing police harassment. Peer educators and sex workers are regularly arrested for possessing condoms or literature about safer sex. International pressure has contributed to the release of those held in detention. One success is securing the inclusion of MSM as a vulnerable group under the National AIDS Plan. In this context, involvement by members of sexual and gender minorities in the HIV/AIDS response is both courageous and dangerous.
Catherine Healey described how sex workers in New Zealand organized to lobby for decriminalization. As a result, the Prostitution Reform Act was passed in 2003. This new legislation protects the human rights and the health of sex workers. This is a case of an "affected" group successfully taking on the challenge of decriminalization.
There is no hard evidence yet of the impact of this new legislation, but family planning service providers have reported increased willingness of sex workers to seek HIV related and other services. Sex workers will now call the police to lodge complaints about abusive clients. And Catherine says there is a feeling of greater self-esteem and openness that should have a positive impact.
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