<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4CEUMe_0wKmFc1800" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4CEUMe_0wKmFc1800" width="1440" height="500" ></figure>On April 9, 2024, for the first time in history, a full session of the United Nations Security Council received a briefing on security issues impacting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people during the council’s quarterly meeting on Colombia. In her statement, the director of the human rights organization Colombia Diversa called on the council to “send a powerful signal to the LGBTQ population in Colombia that their lives matter and that you will stand by your commitment to protect their rights.”However, the Security Council has not committed to protecting the rights of LGBTIQ people in Colombia or in other conflict-affected contexts—at least not explicitly. The council has never mentioned LGBTIQ people or sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) in any agreed documents. And only on two prior occasions has the council received a briefing on the human rights of LGBTIQ people, neither of which took place in a full session: an open Arria-formula meeting on the human rights of LGBTIQ people in 2023 and a closed Arria-formula meeting on the Islamic State’s crimes against LGBTIQ people in Iraq and Syria in 2015.Yet as in other contentious areas, this lack of explicit mention in Security Council documents does not foreclose the possibility of the UN helping to protect LGBTIQ people in conflict-affected or post-conflict areas, including through UN peace operations.The UN Peace and Security Pillar’s Slow Path to Acknowledging LGBTIQ PeopleCompared to other parts of the UN system, it has taken significantly longer for discussions on LGBTIQ people to reach the UN’s peace and security pillar. For example, there is a gap of more than a decade between the first discussions on this topic at the Human Rights Council (in 2003) and at the Security Council (in 2015). Similarly, UN entities focused on human rights, public health, and development started considering how to include LGBTIQ people in their work decades before UN entities focused on peace and security.One barrier to progress is the politically sensitive nature of the topic. Many UN member states are firmly opposed to any mention of sexual orientation, gender identity, or LGBTIQ people. While these states have been regularly outvoted in the Human Rights Council and General Assembly, any resolution mentioning these topics is guaranteed to be vetoed by Russia in the Security Council. Anti–“gender ideology” advocates have also become more active in lobbying the UN, launching well-organized and well-funded campaigns against the rights of women and LGBTIQ people. Nonetheless, some progress has been possible because of strong advocates for the rights of LGBTIQ people in civil society, within the UN, and among member states, including the LGBTI Core Group, which now includes 42 member states (half from the Global North and half from the Global South). It was a member of this group—Malta—that invited Colombia Diversa to brief the Security Council in April.These advocates are gradually advancing the notion that violence against LGBTIQ people living in conflict-affected contexts falls squarely within the remit of the Security Council and the UN’s peace and security pillar. In a 2022 report, the UN independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity—a post created by the Human Rights Council in 2016—clearly laid out how various bodies of international law, agendas, and frameworks related to peace and security apply to LGBTIQ people, even when they are not explicitly mentioned. Most notably, while none of the Security Council’s women, peace, and security (WPS) resolutions mention lesbian, bisexual, or transgender women, some of the states and organizations implementing these resolutions have adopted a more expansive understanding of WPS. For example, more than a dozen countries spanning all five UN regional groups have recognized the specific vulnerabilities of “sexual and gender minorities,” LGBTIQ people, or “individuals with diverse sexual orientation or gender identity” in their national action plans on WPS. There have also been growing efforts to link the persecution of LGBTIQ people and atrocity prevention, including within the responsibility to protect framework.The Latest Developments: A UN Secretariat Strategy on LGBTIQ PeopleRecognition of the rights of LGBTIQ people has also slowly begun to take hold at the UN Department of Peace Operations (DPO) and UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA). Both departments now have LGBTI focal points to consider the programmatic inclusion of LGBTIQ people, as well as headquarters-level representatives with UN-GLOBE, a group that advocates on behalf of LGBTIQ UN personnel. Some recent policies and guidance have also started including references to LGBTIQ people, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The policy on gender-responsive peacekeeping, which was just updated this year, commits peace operations to an “intersectional approach to address multiple discriminatory practices,” including based on gender and sexual orientation. A new handbook to promote gender-responsive peacekeeping among military personnel deployed to UN peace operations provides advice on carrying out a “gender-responsive analysis of the human, geographical and information terrain,” including consideration of “persons belonging to the LGBTQI+ community.” It also includes guidance and role-playing exercises designed to create a positive work environment for LGBTIQ peacekeepers.The biggest recent development came at the end of June, when the UN released a UN Secretariat Strategy on Protection from Violence and Discrimination of LGBTIQ+ Persons, which had been several years in the making. This strategy commits the entire UN Secretariat, including DPO, DPPA, and all UN peace operations, to two sets of actions: “internal actions” ensuring the safety and well-being of LGBTIQ+ staff; and “external actions” to include “the protection and promotion of the rights of LGBTIQ+ persons” in programming and to “ensure the safe and meaningful engagement of LGBTIQ+ persons in programmes and policies that impact them.” Eventually, the strategy will include an “operational and monitoring framework” for UN peace operations “in alignment with their specific mandates and operational contexts and in consultation with them.”How significant is the launch of this strategy? One official in DPPA/DPO described it as “huge,” emphasizing the importance of the strategy coming from the secretary-general himself rather than from the human rights office (OHCHR). It represents a clear commitment to LGBTIQ people from the very top of the UN and establishes the protection of LGBTIQ people from violence and discrimination as an institutional norm and obligation.At the same time, the strategy will likely face challenges. It was not accompanied by a directive to missions to implement it, and its framework for operationalization and monitoring has yet to be developed. Even when this framework is developed, DPPA and DPO’s capacity to operationalize the strategy will be limited considering the resource constraints they already face. The strategy also doesn’t come at a good time for UN peace operations. With UN peacekeeping in retrenchment, there is unlikely to be much appetite for prioritizing a new area of work—let alone a controversial one. One UN official noted that there is buy-in for the strategy among many leaders and staff at DPPA and DPO headquarters, but it could be undermined by a broader backlash against diversity and inclusion initiatives driven by anxiety over staffing cuts.What Can UN Peace Operations Do to Protect or Engage with LGBTIQ People?The challenges to operationalizing this strategy within UN missions are even greater. In many countries where UN peace operations are deployed, issues related to LGBTIQ people are taboo and LGBTIQ people and organizations face legal restrictions. This can make these issues difficult to raise, including among national staff within UN missions.Despite these obstacles, some UN peace operations have undertaken activities related to sexual orientation and gender identity or LGBTIQ people. Looking at what these missions have done reveals several areas where UN peace operations could protect or engage with LGBTIQ people within their existing mandates, activities, and resources.First, UN peace operations can monitor and report on violence against LGBTIQ people. There is very little data on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in any country, let alone in the conflict-affected countries where peace operations are present. This lack of data can render invisible the homophobic and transphobic violence that armed conflict often exacerbates. This is something UN peace operations can help redress. All UN peace operations are mandated to prevent and respond to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and they gather data on CRSV through the monitoring and reporting arrangements (MARA). Since 2017, the secretary-general’s reports on CRSV have explicitly defined CRSV to include violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Since then, his reports have acknowledged violence against LGBTIQ people in various contexts on the Security Council’s agenda, including Colombia, Haiti, Libya, Myanmar, and Syria.However, the UN is not systematically collecting data on CRSV against LGBTIQ people. Doing so would require a change in reporting methodology and an additional set of questions when interviewing victims. Even if missions don’t report detailed numbers, they could help draw attention to the issue. For example, the mission in Haiti has made general references to violence or discrimination against LGBTIQ people in its reporting. Other missions could follow suit. In Afghanistan, for example, the UN is one of the only actors left in the country with the mandate and ability to report on violence against LGBTIQ people. While UN human rights reporting on Afghanistan has highlighted such violence, it has been absent from the mission’s reporting, except a mention of instances of corporal punishment for offenses including theft, consumption of alcohol, and “homosexuality.”Missions could also report on violence against LGBTIQ activists. In his annual report on WPS in 2019, the secretary-general requested “peacekeeping and special political missions to continue to improve their monitoring and reporting of threats and violence against activists, including women human rights defenders, with data disaggregated by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.” The only mission that seems to have followed through on this request is the UN mission in Colombia, which has consistently reported on killings of LGBTIQ human rights defenders since 2021.A second area where missions have taken action is direct engagement with or support to LGBTIQ people or organizations. Again, the mission in Colombia is a good example. The mission has systematically included the LGBTIQ group Colombia Diversa in its consultations with feminist civil society organizations on the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement (a connection that facilitated Colombia Diversa’s invitation to brief the Security Council). One of the reasons for this engagement is that Colombia Diversa was involved in the peace negotiations that preceded the mission’s deployment, so the government of Colombia set the precedent for the group’s inclusion. Similarly, the first national meeting of LGBTI former combatants in 2023 was organized by the government, with the mission providing support.Beyond Colombia, there are a few ad hoc examples of other UN missions providing support to LGBTIQ organizations. In 2013, the UN mission in Sierra Leone facilitated a program to build the capacity of a local LGBTIQ rights organization to monitor and document human rights violations of members of the LGBTIQ community. In 2023, the mission in Cyprus supported LGBTIQ events, among other types of events, to encourage bicommunal contact. Additionally, over the past eight years, the various missions in Haiti have provided a number of different types of support to the LGBTIQ community, including capacity-building projects for NGOs to fight homophobia and promote the security and rights of LGBTIQ people and events aimed at creating safe spaces for LGBTIQ community members. The UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti (MINUJUSTH) is also a unique example of a mission that included an indicator related to protecting LGBTI people in its 2017–2018 results-based budget. These examples demonstrate the potential for missions to engage with LGBTIQ people in a wide range of contexts.A third area for action is engagement with host-state authorities to advocate against discriminatory laws or policies or to support the development of more inclusive laws and policies. For example, in 2017, the UN mission in Haiti raised human rights concerns around legislation that appeared to target LGBTIQ people. More recently, in 2024, the UN mission in Kosovo participated in consultations with the government on its action plan for the rights of LGBTI people.Beyond these “external actions,” the UN and troop- and police-contributing countries should also take “internal actions” to ensure the safety and equal treatment of LGBTIQ peacekeepers. Across the UN system, lesbian, gay, queer, transgender, and gender-non-confirming personnel have reported higher levels of sexual harassment than their peers, and many LGBTIQ peacekeepers are forced to remain in the closet. The UN Secretariat Strategy on Protection from Violence and Discrimination of LGBTIQ+ Persons provides an impetus for action. It requires all UN entities, including peace operations, to “address issues related to protection, safety and security faced by personnel and their family members who identify as LGBTIQ+ or work on related issues” and to “ensure an inclusive organizational culture, that recognizes, respects and values the participation of all persons, including LGBTIQ+ persons.” For example, all training on sexual harassment should address harassment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.Adapting to the ContextThe types of actions that will be possible or advisable for any given UN peace operation are highly context-specific and should be informed by local perspectives. Some contexts, like Colombia, are significantly more conducive to this sort of work. The Colombian peace agreement includes several specific provisions related to LGBTIQ people, including efforts to combat stigmatization of the community, the principles of respect for equality and non-discrimination, and specially trained monitors for receiving and analyzing data related to violence against LGBTIQ people. Colombia also has relatively strong LGBTIQ organizations, and the current government is vocally supportive of the rights of LGBTIQ people, with a feminist foreign policy that explicitly acknowledges the needs and vulnerabilities of the LGBTIQ community.In many other contexts, however, LGBTIQ people face hostile governments and publics, as well as laws that criminalize them or severely restrict their rights; LGBTIQ organizations, if they exist, may have to operate in the shadows. Considering the legitimacy crisis several UN missions have recently faced with both host-state governments and host-state populations, missions in such contexts will likely be wary to push the envelope on such a polarizing issue. There are also risks that vocally supporting LGBTIQ people could further the idea that LGBTIQ rights are a colonial, Western imposition—a narrative that has increasingly been pushed by Russia.However, these obstacles don’t mean missions can ignore the issue. The secretary-general has made clear that “the respect, protection and fulfilment of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of every person, without exception, is at the heart of the work of the United Nations and is essential to the advancement of development, peace, security and in humanitarian responses.” In areas such as monitoring and reporting, civil society engagement, and engagement with host-state authorities, missions can take meaningful action within their current mandates and resources, even in difficult contexts. At a minimum, all missions must be aware of how conflict disproportionately affects LGBTIQ people and incorporate that awareness into their activities.Albert Trithart is Editor and Research Fellow at the International Peace Institute. Mariana Knaupp is former editorial intern at IPI.</div></body>

Mountain View, CA

NewsBreak

Peace Operations and the Protection of LGBTIQ People: What Is the UN’s Role?

On April 9, 2024, for the first time in history, a full session of the United Nations Security Council received a briefing on security issues impacting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people during the council’s quarterly meeting on Colombia. In her statement, the director of the human rights organization Colombia Diversa called on the council to “send a powerful signal to the LGBTQ population in Colombia that their lives matter and that you will stand by your commitment to protect their rights.”