“The trend is getting worse. Over the past year, Burkina Faso criminalized consensual same-sex relationships,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights insisted. “Senegal increased prison sentences for same-sex sexual acts from five to ten years. “Similar laws are being considered in other countries, including Ghana.”
repression trend
These countries also have discriminatory laws that criminalize the dissemination of information on LGBTIQ+ issues, with similar legal restrictions in place in Belarus and Kazakhstan, Türk continued. “We denounce these trends and commit to reversing them… History has shown that when societies normalize hate and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people, he lays the groundwork for broader repression.”
The UN’s top human rights official highlighted how Cameroon, Hungary, Indonesia, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey and other countries “have arrested and attacked LGBTIQ+ people and activists”, amid divisive rhetoric “by some politicians and leaders” that is fueling online abuse, especially against transgender people.
“Elections have become battlefields of hate”said the High Commissioner for Human Rights, referring to a study by the NGO Outright International on the almost 90 elections held around the world in 2024, which found that approximately 85 percent of the countries surveyed contained anti-LGBTIQ+ messages.
Despite this growing negative trend, some progress is being made in the fight to “live and love freely,” Türk noted.
He pointed to Saint Lucia, which has now decriminalized consensual same-sex relationships, and Botswana, which has decriminalized same-sex conduct. And Nepal, where the country elected a transgender woman as a member of Parliament for the first time in its history.
The High Commissioner also welcomed other positive developments, including the European Court of Justice’s ruling on April 21 this year that Hungary’s 2021 ban on children’s content on sexual orientation and gender identity violated fundamental rights.
“States must end violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people by repealing biased laws, investigating all violations and holding perpetrators accountable,” Türk said, in remarks on the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia on Sunday.
“Both states and technology companies must take meaningful action against online hate and abuse.”