Last week a boat crashed onto the razor sharp cliffs off Christmas Island. It was reported 28 lives were lost in the treacherous waters. It brings to light the absolute desperation that people who are fleeing their countries face that they would leave their homeland and risk their life on tiny wooden boats.
As this goes to the print the UN General Assembly is voting on a resolution, which in November passed the General Assembly’s Third Committee 79/70 with 10 abstentions, to remove from its wording explicit protection for sexual orientation from extrajudicial execution i.e. the death penalty for being gay.
In the parts of the world where this is practice, its not like you can go online and buy the latest cheap airfare during a midnight budget airline sale to escape. The salespeople for people smuggling aren’t exactly door knocking the neighborhood with clipboards and free samples. It takes a desperate person in a desperate situation to seek out a journey, which may end in the same kind of tragedy we saw last week.
We as Australians, at any one time, have a number of asylum seekers languishing in our detention centres, in as remote places as Christmas Island, who has fled homophobic violence. Whether any were on those boats that crashed last week, I don’t know. I do know is that the lives of our LGBT brothers and sisters from across the seas are about to get worse thanks to this UN Resolution.
If this resolution passes or not, we now know the homophobic position of the following 79 governments that voted to delete the explicit LGBT protection: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, North Korea, Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Burma, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Why not send the leaders of these countries a nicely worded Christmas card?
info: Rathana Chea NSW GLRL Co-convenor
