Joining Forces to Promote and Protect the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons

ECRI 2021 annual seminar with Equality Bodies

Date: 18 October 2021

Venue: Hybrid form : Strasbourg – Council of Europe, Agora Building and online

ECRI has been addressing intolerance and discrimination against LGBTI persons in the context of its country monitoring work since 2013, when it initiated its fifth country monitoring cycle. On 1 March 2021 it published a factsheet with key recommendations on how to end policies and practices that may lead to intolerance and discrimination against LGBTI people. This factsheet summarises the recommendations made by ECRI in its country monitoring reports and underlines that, as called for in ECRI’s General Policy Recommendation N°2 (revised) on Equality Bodies to combat racism and intolerance at national level, the mandates of equality bodies should cover intolerance and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.

Objectives of the 2021 annual seminar with Equality Bodies

Apart from offering a forum for exchanges of good practices among ECRI, Equality Bodies and other major stakeholders in this field, including relevant entities of other international organisations and civil society organisations, the seminar will enable the participants to discuss how to optimise the partnerships between the above actors for the benefit of LGBTI people’s human rights. Importantly, the seminar is further expected to provide useful elements for the future preparation of an ECRI General Policy Recommendation on LGBTI issues, as foreseen by ECRI’s 2019 Roadmap to Effective Equality for the years to come. The seminar will give equality bodies a unique opportunity to provide their impetus for the preparation of this important forthcoming instrument on ECRI’s standards in the area of LGBTI people’s human rights.

Structure of the event

The annual seminar will be structured in three substantive sessions: I. Policy and legal frameworks, II. Prevention and III. Protection and Prosecution.

Participants

Invited participants will be members of ECRI, heads and LGBTI focal points of equality bodies and selected national human rights institutions of Council of Europe member states, including umbrella organisations, as well as representatives of key civil society organisations active in the area of human rights of LGBTI people. Representatives of other international partner organisations will also be invited, as will relevant representatives of academia and other Council of Europe bodies.

Speakers

Among the foreseen speakers sharing their insights and experiences during the introduction and in the three substantive sessions of the seminar will be, apart from ECRI members and representatives of equality bodies, international partners, academia and NGOs. Victims of human rights violations as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity, including successful parties to litigation procedures on a national level or in cases examined by the European Court of Human Rights, will also share their stories.