Arrests and prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual acts, or for diverse gender expressions, continue unabated across the world. And yet, they are considerably under-reported.
Our Identities Under Arrest is a new publication by ILGA World offering a global overview of the enforcement of laws criminalising consensual same-sex sexual acts between adults and diverse gender expressions.
The report reviews hundreds of cases in which law enforcements subjected LGBT and gender-diverse persons to fines, arbitrary arrests, prosecutions, corporal punishments, imprisonments and more – up to (possibly) the death penalty.
Governments often argue that criminalising laws are ‘dormant’, but this report offers evidence that such claims are largely inaccurate. How – and how often – they are enforced can vary abruptly and in unpredictable ways, making both our communities on the ground and asylum seekers who managed to flee live perpetually under threat.
The Our Identities under Arrest report will be of great value to the advocacy work of human rights defenders. It will assist asylum seekers and the legal experts working on their cases. And it will provide researchers, media outlets, governmental and global agencies with the necessary information to build a holistic picture of how the criminalisation on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression really looks like.
Click the link below to read the full report: