Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW) Activities
1. SPW attends IASSCS Conference (Peru, June, 2007)! – by M. Muñoz-Laboy
2. SPW Steering Committee Meeting – by Sonia Corrêa
3. Inauguration of e-book SexPolitics – by M. Muñoz-Laboy
4. Human Rights Council: the institutional building process – by Gloria Careaga
Yogyakarta Principles
5. Launchings of Yogyakarta Principles
6. Considerations about the Principles – by Mauro Cabral
7. Yogyakarta Principles Video – by Valetina Homem
Sexuality around the world: main debates
8. The Nigerian same–sex marriage bill: Challenges and Gains – by Dotty Aken’ova
9. “Same sex” marriage case in Pakistan
10. Brazilian project debates disability and sexuality during the IASSCS Conference – by Marina Maria
11. April – November/2007: relevant events
12. Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) ask for the repeal of all anti-homosexuality laws
13. US Senate votes to repeal the Global Gag Rule and to ease restrictions on U.S. Global HIV Prevention and Family Planning
14. US Congress passed a bill to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the work place
Other relevant facts and events
15. Abortion Struggles: More gains than losses – by Sonia Corrêa 16. Brazil issues compulsory license of HIV/AIDS
16. Film and diversity over the rainbow in Fortaleza – by Vagner de Almeida
Sexuality in Art
17. Coming events
Check it out! Events and opportunities
18. Scholarships
19. Job opportunities
20. Launching of Global Campaign to “Stop Stoning and Killing Women”
Keep an eye
21. Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review
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Sexuality Policy Watch (SPW) Activities
SPW attends IASSCS Conference (Peru, June, 2007)!
By M. Muñoz-Laboy
SPW – Columbia Secretariat Team
Apart from the positive commotion and excitement that usually dominates international conferences, SPW had a strong and consistent presence during the latest International Association for the Study of the Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS) meeting in Lima, Peru in June 2007. SPW Steering Committee members Ros Petchesky and Richard Parker presented two of the four opening plenary lectures during the conference. Their lectures entitled Revisiting Sexual Rights: New Conceptual Tools (R. Petchesky) and Sexual Cultures in Latin America (R. Parker) were well-received and generated active audience participation during the discussion sections. The content of their lectures was based on work developed for their co-authored book (with Sonia Corrêa), Sexuality, Health and Human Rights, which is one of the policy analysis projects of the SPW.
In addition to these lectures, SPW researchers of the global sexuality policy monitoring project hosted two panels. The first panel, Sexuality and Politics: The Perverse Combinations of Silencing and Obsession, included presentations by four SPW researchers: Carlos Cáceres, Wanda Nowicka, Le Minh Giang and Kenneth de Camargo. This panel was coordinated by Gloria Careaga. The second panel, Sexual Politics: Breaking Through Conflicts and Challenges, also focused on the intersections of sexuality and politics. Coordinated by Sonia Correa, this panel included five SPW researchers: Sérgio Carrara, Adriana Vianna, Radhika Ramasubban, Pinar Ilkkaracan and Robert Sember. During both panels, audience members asked detailed questions and had the opportunity to discuss how sexuality in the diverse contexts where SPW works intersects directly and through multiple mechanisms with local, national and global politics.
As demonstrated this summer in Lima, SPW succeeded in having a strong presence at this international forum (which was also the case in 2005, the first time SPW attended the IASSCS meeting). SPW will continue to increase its visibility in similar international events. We look forward to participating in the 2009 IASSCS meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Click here to read more about IASSCS Conference.
2. SPW Steering Committee Meeting
By Sonia Corrêa
Researcher associate at the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (Abia) and Co-coordinator of SPW
The members of the SPW Steering Committee and Advisory Group met in Lima immediately before the IASSCS Conference. In this occasion the identity of SPW as a flexible forum was re-affirmed and the participants reiterated their interest in the production and sharing of high quality analyses on sexuality related matters that is generated in collaboration with activists and advocates, and can contribute to linking local, regional and global levels in a manner useful for diverse stakeholders. To this end, the SPW plans in the future to hold a series of regional cross-constituency meetings on sexuality, religion and the state, with the aim of generating useful analyses and carrying out exploratory work to produce new conceptual frameworks in relation to critical domains such as sexuality, economics and markets and sexuality, ethics and the religious.
3. Inauguration of e-book SexPolitics
By M. Muñoz-Laboy On November 8th, 2007, the Columbia University secretariat of SPW hosted a meeting to officially inaugurate the e-book SexPolitics: Reports from the Front Lines, one of the main achievements of the global policy monitoring project. Approximately 60 people attended the opening seminar held at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.
To read the full article, click here.
4. Human Rights Council: the institutional building process
By Gloria Careaga
Member of the SPW Steering Committee
In its first year of existence the Human Rights Council has been presided over by the Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba. During this period the Council debates have been oriented towards reaching consensus with respect to the following key institutional matters:
- Universal Periodical Review of human rights at the country level
- Revision of the Special Procedures System
- Structure and composition of the Advisory Committe
- Rules concerning the Complaint Procedures
- The framework to guide the Working Agenda of the Council
- Procedure Rules of the Council’s permanent work
Full article available in English and in Spanish.
Read also:
- Article by Sandeep Prasad (Action Canada for Population and Development and Sexual Rights Initiative), which looks back at last year’s session of the HRC, and looks to the challenges that lie ahead in the coming session.
- The Human Rights Council information system website
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Yogyakarta Principles
5. Launchings of Yogyakarta Principles
While the first SPW newsletter featured the launching of Yogyakarta Principles at the 4th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, this issue covers three other launching events:
5.1 – Panel organized at the Lima IASCSS Conference (June, 2007)
The Yogyakarta Principles were launched in June, 28th, during the IASSCS Conference. The panel discussion counted with the presence of the Principles’ writing group: Sonia Corrêa, Kim Vance and Mauro Cabral.
5.2 – Events organized in Brazil (August, 2007) to launch the Principles took place in Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, Nova Iguaçu and São Paulo
Click here to read more.
5.3 – Panel held at the United Nations in New York (November 7th, 2007)
This report was made by ISHR in cooperation with IGLHRC and HRW
This panel discussion was organized to promote the release of the Yogyakarta Principles at UN Headquarters. The discussion was moderated by Boris Dittrich, Advocacy Director, LGBT Program, Human Rights Watch. The event was sponsored by the following Permanent Missions to the UN: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. It was held on November 7, 2007, parallel to the session of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly.
The NGOs who organized the panel discussion were: Arc International, Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Global Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, International Lesbian and Gay Association, and International Service for Human Rights.
The event was attended by over 100 people with standing room only. The following Permanent Missions were represented at the event: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, Guyana, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Sri Lanka, Sweden, United Kingdom, Uruguay and USA. The European Commission and the Holy See were also represented, along with various NGOs and individuals working to promote and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people. Several journalists attended the meeting.
Click here to read full report.
6. Considerations about the Principles
By Mauro Cabral
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba and Mulabi – Espacio Latinoamericano de Sexualidades y Derechos
The Yogyakarta Principles are the outcome of a long and difficult historical process through which the diversity of bodies, identities, sexualities and genders has been progressively infused in the overarching framework of the international human rights principles (…).
The very existence of the Yogyakarta Principles unequivocally marks a fundamental breakthrough in matters related to human rights. But their existence by itself will not transform the conditions that make them indispensable. The task we face is to transform what until now is only text into realities.
Read full article in English and in Spanish.
7. Yogyakarta Principles Video
By Valentina Homem
An independent videomaker
Check out a video about Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity made by Valentina Homem, an independent videomaker! Watch the English and Portuguese versions of the video.
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Sexuality around the world: main debates
8. The Nigerian same–sex marriage bill: Challenges and Gains
By Dotty Aken’ova
Member of the SPW Advisory Group
It has been almost two years since the bill prohibiting same sex marriage in Nigeria was introduced to the national house of assembly. Open LGBTQ activists in Nigeria at the time were very few and advocacy capacity on LGBTQ issues was very poor. The introduction of the bill shook the few LGBTQ activists awake, and caused them to look of allies in the mainstream human rights and women’s NGO communities to team up against the bill.
The introduction of the bill also caused the international community to invest in sharpening advocacy skills among activists in order to enable them fight the bill.
Click here to read full article.
9. “Same sex” marriage case in Pakistan
Read the article Case of shahzima tariq and shamial raj’s for entering into ‘same sex’ marriage, by the Pakistani feminist Nighat Khan, in English and in Portuguese. More information about this case available at:
10. Brazilian project debates disability and sexuality during the IASSCS Conference (Peru, June, 2007)
By Marina Maria
SPW – Abia Secretariat Team
In the International Conference Dis/organized – Changing bodies, rights and cultures, promoted by the International Association for the Study of the Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS), Leandra Migotto Certeza – a Brazilian journalist and human rights activist – received the second place award in the Poster Presentation category with the project Kaleidoscopic Fantasies, developed in partnership with the photographer Vera Albuquerque. The project invited persons with physical, hearing, visual, intellectual or even multiple disabilities to express their beauty and sensuality to the photographer’ s lenses.
Read full article in English and in Portuguese.
11. April – November/2007: relevant events
11.1 – 4ª Conferencia Regional de ILGA LAC
11.2 – Out & Equal Workplace Summit
The Out & Equal Workplace Summit took place in Washington DC, from September 26 – 29, 2007. This was a very interesting space, for the first time, lgbt USA organizations invited ILGA south representatives to discuss with managers from transnational companies about lgbt rights and policies. Latinamerican and African representatives participation was focused in been part of the panels:”Latin American and African Workplaces: Laws, Social Attitudes, and LGBT Identities” and “Out & Equal Workplaces: A Global Perspective”. The discussion was centered in defining strategies to strengthen the respect of LGBT rights in these regions and in highlighting the steps the companies have already done to guarantee LGBT rights within their labor spaces and contracts.
11.3 – Women Deliver Conference Launches New Commitments
12. Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) ask for the repeal of all anti-homosexuality laws
Access IGLHRC website to learn more about it.
13. US Senate votes to repeal the Global Gag Rule and to ease restrictions on U.S. Global HIV Prevention and Family Planning
Read press release by the Center for Health and Gender Equality.
14. US Congress passed a bill to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the work place Check out the following websites:
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Other relevant facts and events
15. Abortion Struggles: More gains than losses
By Sonia Corrêa
When 2007 begun, abortion rights advocates worldwide were, on the one hand, deeply regretting the abolition of the therapeutic abortion clause from the Nicaraguan Penal Code, on the other commemorating the decision of the Colombian Constitutional Court that make abortion legal and accessible in the cases of rape, grave fetal abnormality, women’s health and life risks. The year 2007 began positively with the February referendum that legalized abortion in Portugal, which was followed by the legalization of abortion in the Federal District of Mexico, in late April. Last but not least, on November, 6th, the Uruguayan Senate, in an extraordinary session, voted the Law on Sexual and Reproductive Law, which encompasses the legalization of abortion on demand until the 12th week of pregnancy.
Click here to read full article.
16. Brazil issues compulsory license for HIV/AIDS antiretroviral drug
On May 4th, 2007 the Brazilian government issued the compulsory license for Efavirenz (HIV/AIDS antiretroviral drug). This measure represented a crucial advancement, specially for people living with HIV/AIDS in Brazil. Just after this decision was taken, there was a great pressure from different sectors of the pharmaceutical industry repudiating this measure. In order to avoid any setback to this important achievement, Rebrip (Brazilian Network for the Integration of Peoples), though its Working Group on Intellectual Property (GTPI), circulated a public note and a petition, which gathered a significant number of signatures and that was given to ministries and special secretaries. This and other efforts have served as political support to the Brazilian governments´ decision. The next step has been to monitor, in systematic and continuous way, the generic version of Efavirenz´ research and development (R&D).
- Click here to read the public note.
- Click here to read the petition.
- Click here to read article by Gabriela Chaves and Renata Reis (Abia/GTPI-Rebrip), presented at the International Conference on Compulsory Licensing: Innovation and Access for All (Thailand, Nov 2007).
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Sexuality in Art
17. Film and diversity over the rainbow in Fortaleza
By Vagner de Almeida
SPW – Columbia Secretariat Team
The first For Rainbow Festival of Cinema and Sexual Diversity held in Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, on July, 2007, is the first film festival in the Northeast of Brazil that highlights positive aspects of gender and sexual diversity. Abia – The Brazilian Interdisciplinary Association of AIDS was well represented at the festival, with presentations of the films “Living Day By Day”, “The Butterflies”, “Prevention Cabaret”, “Rites and Sayings of Young Gays”, and “Homophobia in School”, all directed by Vagner de Almeida, who presented a special session on educational film-making and talked about how the films are done with the base communities in settings where sexual diversity and violence co-exist and where youth and adults are often killed because their sexual lives are not accepted by others.The films from ABIA were shown in different parts of the festival, with special sessions for local artists, activists, directors, educators, and administrators from the public schools and public health system who wanted to learn how to work with the LGBT population.
Click here to read full article.
Read also:
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Check it out! Events and opportunities
18. Coming events 18.1 – 3rd ILGA-ASIA Regional Conference
The 3rd ILGA-ASIA Regional Conference will be held on 24-27 January 2008 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Chiang Mai based LGBT groups, The Committee on Lesbigay Rights in Burma (CLRB) and M-Plus are in charge of organizing the conference on the ground. For more information, click here .
18.2 – 4th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) and IPPF
The 4th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) is scheduled to take place on 28-30 May, 2008 in Yokohama, Japan. For further information, contact Yuri Nakamura at ynakamura@ippf.org .
18.3 – Equality Forum 2008
Equality Forum 2008 will be held from April 28 through May 4, in Philadelphia, USA. The program will be archived and made available via video stream on the Equality Forum Web site. For more information, click here or contact info@irgo.net .
19. Scholarships 19.1 – Graduate Scholarships in Reproductive and Sexual Health Law at the University of Toronto’s
Faculty of Law cover tuition, travel and livingexpenses for a 1-year Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree for lawyer-activists from developing countries. Deadline for applications: February 1st, 2008. For more information, click here or contact law.graduate@utoronto.ca .
19.2 – III Coloquio Internacional de Estudios sobre Varones Y Masculinidades – December, 2008 – Medellín / Colombia
Deadline for applications: January 31, 2008 For more information, contact iiicoloquiomasculinidades2008@yahoo.com.mx
19.3 – ILGA-Europe announces fourth call for proposals for Pilot Human Rights Violations Documentation Fund
Deadline for applications: December 19, 2007 For more information, click here or contact maxim@ilga-europe.org
19.4 – I Encuentro Latinoamericano y del Caribe “La sexualidad frente a la sociedad”, in México, D. F., July 28-31, 2008
For more information, contact sexualidadysociedad2008@gmail.com or careaga@servidor.unam.mx
19.5 – The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) calls for funding applications for projects aimed at promoting and strengthening democracy. It will open its second round of funding applications from November 15 to December 18, 2007. Only on-line applications will be accepted, and they may be submitted either in English or French. The application procedure is described in the project proposal guidelines available on the UNDEF website. For more information, click here.
19.6 – AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development) International Forum on Women’s Rights and Development – The Power of Movements – From November 14-17, 2008
Deadline for Applications: January 28, 2008 For more information, click here.
20. Job opportunities 20.1 – ISHR is seeking a new director. The position is based in Geneva.
Deadline for applications: December 31, 2007 For more information, click here or contact director@ishr.ch
20.2 – The Foundation for AIDS Research is accepting resumes for the position of Manager for the MSM (Men who have sex with men) Initiative, with amfAR’s Global Initiatives Division.
Location: New York, USA For more information, contact susan.kennedy@amfar.org
20.3 – The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Participation Power and Social Change team are seeking to appoint up to two new fellows; one appointment in the field civil society – state relations and the second appointment is open to any of the themes relevant to the work of the team: power and change at systemic, organisational and personal levels of experience; identities, rights and social justice; and inclusive citizenship and governance. For more information, access www.ids.ac.uk (click on “job” link) or contact hr@ids.ac.uk ______________________________________________________________________________________
Keep an eye
21. Launching of Global Campaign to “Stop Stoning and Killing Women” Read information about the campaign at:
22. Human Rights Council (HRC) Universal Periodic Review
Access the HRC website