1/14/2015
NEW DELHI – A minister in the Indian state of Goa announced plans Tuesday to establish a center where LGBT – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender – young people will receive treatment to make them “normal.”
The youngsters will receive “training” and medication as part of the program of therapy offered at the center, according to Goa Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janta Party, as reported by Delhi channel NDTV.
“As in the case of other target groups such as juvenile offenders, drug afflicted youth, marginalized or migrant youth, geographically disadvantaged youth, a detailed survey would be carried out of the LGBT community so that their problems could be specifically addressed,” Tawadkar said.
Gautam Bhan, a gay rights activist and organizer of the Nigah QueerFest, told Efe that the Goa minister’s announcement was “unfortunate and without any scientific accuracy.”
Calling homosexuality a disease goes against the criteria of Indian institutions such as the Indian Psychiatric Society, explained Bhan.
“We expect more from a government that speaks so much about a new and modern India which cannot be achieved without basic respect for all citizens,” said the activist.
India made homosexuality illegal again in December 2013, four years after it had decriminalized it in 2009.
In an address in New Delhi on Monday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that laws that criminalize consensual relations between same-sex adults “violate basic rights to privacy and to freedom from discrimination.”
Ban said he was proud to stand for the equality of all people “including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.”
Even though in 2014 the Indian Supreme Court recognized transsexuals as a third gender, the LGBT community continues to suffer major discrimination in the country.
The group finds itself in a “complicated” situation where the gay rights movement has been strengthened, but its members are still subjected to discrimination and violence “on a daily basis,” sums up the activist.
source
NEW DELHI – A minister in the Indian state of Goa announced plans Tuesday to establish a center where LGBT – Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender – young people will receive treatment to make them “normal.”The youngsters will receive “training” and medication as part of the program of therapy offered at the center, according to Goa Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janta Party, as reported by Delhi channel NDTV.
“As in the case of other target groups such as juvenile offenders, drug afflicted youth, marginalized or migrant youth, geographically disadvantaged youth, a detailed survey would be carried out of the LGBT community so that their problems could be specifically addressed,” Tawadkar said.
Gautam Bhan, a gay rights activist and organizer of the Nigah QueerFest, told Efe that the Goa minister’s announcement was “unfortunate and without any scientific accuracy.”
Calling homosexuality a disease goes against the criteria of Indian institutions such as the Indian Psychiatric Society, explained Bhan.
“We expect more from a government that speaks so much about a new and modern India which cannot be achieved without basic respect for all citizens,” said the activist.
India made homosexuality illegal again in December 2013, four years after it had decriminalized it in 2009.
In an address in New Delhi on Monday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that laws that criminalize consensual relations between same-sex adults “violate basic rights to privacy and to freedom from discrimination.”
Ban said he was proud to stand for the equality of all people “including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.”
Even though in 2014 the Indian Supreme Court recognized transsexuals as a third gender, the LGBT community continues to suffer major discrimination in the country.
The group finds itself in a “complicated” situation where the gay rights movement has been strengthened, but its members are still subjected to discrimination and violence “on a daily basis,” sums up the activist.
source
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