Announcement: ILGA Asia Joins Power Of Pride, a Global Alliance to Strengthen LGBTI Movement
1st April 2021
Bangkok — ILGA Asia joins hands with COC Nederland and Pan Africa ILGA in an alliance to support LGBTI organisations in 22 countries in Asia and Africa. The Power of Pride alliance covers broad-reaching advocacy support, and local community initiatives strengthening. This programme is supported through a five-year strategic partnership with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2021-2025)
In Asia, five countries will benefit from this programme, with the aim to enable the voices of local LGBTI organisations and initiatives to be effectively heard and heeded. Power of Pride will further its goals towards changing social norms, legislation and policy in the field of sexual and gender diversity in Africa and Asia.
The alliance and local strategic partners also want to ensure that government agencies, community leaders and service providers are more responsive towards the specific needs of LGBTI people. In the Power of Pride programme, the local organisations determine what needs to change in their context and how this can best be achieved. To ensure local voices are taken into account, the Power of Pride alliance has established an international advisory committee (IAC) consisting of LGBTI activists from the two continents.
Improving the human rights situation of LGBTI people is desperately overdue. The Asian region remains at the forefront in the fight against oppressive laws on LGBTI people around the world. Consensual same-sex relations are still criminalised in 21 countries and territories in Asia, while over 16 Asian countries outlawed gender expression and legal recognition for trans people. The criminalisation and pathologization of LGBTI people is a serious human rights violation. It denies LGBTI people from equal dignity and legitimises stigma, discrimination and gender-based violence against them.
ILGA Asia is committed to proactive engagement with LGBTI communities in Asia, and will regularly give updates surrounding the implementation of the Power of Pride programme on its website and social media platforms.
