ILGA warmly congratulates IGLHRC for obtaining ECOSOC Status at the UN after a long battle and a seemingly unbreakable deadlock at the NGO committee.
We are happy to see that the unreasonable – based on nothing but homophobic prejudice – delaying tactics of Egypt and its allies in the NGO Committee have been finally circumvented thanks to a vote in the ECOSOC Council which de facto recognizes the unfair treatment IGLHRC had been subjected to in the NGO Committee.
The victory of IGLHRC indicates the road for ILGA to follow if we are to regain the status lost in 1994 and which we were not able to regain thanks to the obstruction of the same group of countries which have consistently tried to stop any LGBTIacronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people. Although this is not the acronym available to describe people of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics, it is the most commonly used in United Nations spaces and advocacy. More NGO from obtaining ECOSOC Status in the last decade.
The number of ILGA members enjoying ECOSOC status rises now to eight, as IGLHRC joins COC (The Netherlands), RFSL (Sweden), LBL (Denmark), LSVD (Germany), Ilga-Europe, FELGT (Spain) and ABGLT (Brazil).
Gloria Careaga
Renato Sabbadini
co-Secretaries General, ILGA