18/11/2024 | Writer: Kaos GL
In the report, data on systematic discrimination, violence and poverty faced by LGBTI+ persons in Turkey were presented to the UN.
Under the leadership of Murat Çekiç Association, Kaos GL and May 17 Associations submitted a report before the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
The fourth Universal Periodic Review on Turkey will take place in 2025. Turkey will be subjected to the review along with 13 other states.
Some of the highlights of the report are as follows:
“During the 3rd cycle of the UPR received 19 recommendations specifically addressing LGBTI+ rights, 19 were noted and zero supported. This report focuses on the systemic discrimination and violence LGBTI+ people face in Türkiye. With the rise of authoritarianism, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic since 2020, LGBTI+s have experienced increasing levels of poverty, unemployment, and discrimination. The growing influence of far-right populism and anti-gender movements has intensified anti-LGBTI+ rhetoric, culminating in Türkiye's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention and violations of international obligations. The state’s anti-LGBTI+ discourse has fueled hate crimes, often met with impunity. LGBTI+ community is frequently denied access to fundamental rights and freedoms, freedom of expression, assembly, and protection from violence, in particular. The report presents data on the intersectional discrimination these groups, with a specific focus on trans people, intersex people, refugee LGBTI+s, sex worker communities and LGBTİ+s living with HIV, face across various sectors such as healthcare, housing, and employment.”
Recommendations
The report also made 17 recommendations:
1. Amend article 122 of Turkish Penal Code to include sexual orientation and gender identity among the hate motives listed, within a year.
2. Amend the 3rd article of THREI's founding law, titled "Principle of equality and prohibition of discrimination", to ensure that applications regarding discrimination submitted by LGBTI+ people are also examined, within a year.
3. Amend the THREI founding law to guarantee the independence of its members and the impartiality of the institution.
4. Amend article 40 of Turkish Civil Code to guarantee legal gender recognition available for trans persons, without forced surgical and hormone interventions while guaranteeing free gender affirming healthcare including hormone medications and surgeries covered by social security institutions.
5. Prohibit postnatal interventions on intersex except for medical necessity and provide compensation for damages resulting from such interventions. Ensure that these children can exercise their right to sue after they turn 18, and ensure that the statute of limitations, which has become a protective shield for perpetrators, is not applied.
6. Prohibit so-called conversion therapy practices.
7. End public funding through the Press Advertisement Agency to media outlets spreading hate speech.
8. By amending the founding law of the Radio and Television Supreme Council, change the structure of this institution that encourages hate speech towards LGBTI+ people and set concrete rules for sanctioning broadcasters producing hate speech.
9. Remove the obstacles to LGBTI+ people's freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, and put an end to the systematic banning of meetings by Governorships and District Governorates such as pride parades, May 17 marches, and events organized by LGBTI+ organizations, and make legislation on this issue.
10. Amend regulations allowing assisted reproductive techniques available only to married couples to include access for singles, within the next cycle.
11. Within one year, adopt legal and policy measures, such as regulations and security protocols, to ensure asylum seekers from repatriation to any country where their lives or freedom would be threatened because they are LGBTI+.
12. Eliminate all arbitrary acts against human rights defenders, such as arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and media smear campaigns, and ensure that they are adequately protected against intimidation, threats and violence.
13. Implement and amend verdicts by ECtHR on compulsory military service and conscientious objection, ensure civil service alternatives, and apply WHO ICD 11 when defining justification of exemption from military service for GBTI+ persons, within the next cycle.
14. Take measures compatible with Yogyakarta Principles to implement all-inclusive human rights courses in the school curriculum at primary and secondary education, to prevent bullying, harassment, stigmatization, social exclusion and violence against LGBTI+ students, within the next cycle.
15. Establish a specific mandate to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to prosecute and sanction discriminatory practices on the grounds of sogiesc at employment processes and work places, within the next cycle.
16. Decriminalize sex work by amending stigmatising and discriminatory legislations in article 225, 226, and 227 of Turkish Penal Code, and guarantee the social security rights and work safety of sex workers, within a year.
17. Enact National AIDS Plan in cooperation with key population representatives from civil society according to UNAIDS 95-95-95 strategy, and make PreP and PeP available and easily accessible for free, within the next cycle.
Tags: human rights
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