brand logo

UN Committee says Lankan LGBT activist’s rights violated

25 Mar 2022

  • States Rosanna Flamer-Caldera subjected to violence, discrimination and denied access to justice
The Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of the UN Human Rights Council said that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has found that Sri Lanka has violated the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) activist Rosanna Flamer-Caldera.  “In its decision published on 23 March, the said committee found that Sri Lanka has breached the rights of Flamer-Caldera, the Founder and Executive Director of EQUAL GROUND, an organisation defending the rights of the LGBTI community in Sri Lanka,” the OHCHR said in a press statement issued in this regard on Wednesday (23). Thus, the committee has found that the Sri Lankan authorities have subjected Flamer-Caldera to gender-based discrimination and violence, and that they have not taken any legal or other measures to respect and protect Flamer-Caldera’s right to a life free from gender-based violence (GBV) or to eliminate the prejudices to which she has been exposed to as a woman, lesbian, and activist. Furthermore, the committee has found that the authorities have breached her right to access justice in order to complain about the abuses, and her right to non-discrimination concerning her family relations. According to the statement, Flamer-Caldera, who has been supporting lesbian and bisexual women in defending their rights after discovering in 1997 that the country’s Penal Code, which criminalises same sex-sexual activity, had been amended to also include sexual conduct between women, had been subjected to high-profile attacks on her character. “She and her organisation have been subjected to discrimination, harassment, stigmatisation, and threats of violence by state officials and members of the public, including the press and social media.” The statement accused the Women and Children’s Bureau of the Police of using Flamer-Caldera’s photo and her position with EQUAL GROUND in presentations in 2012 and 2013 to assert that the rise of child abuse was mainly due to the “growing homosexual culture”. “Despite facing harassment and stigmatisation, Flamer-Caldera did not complain to the Police as she was worried that she would be arrested. As a result of the amended Penal Code, she has been under constant risk of arrest, detention, and investigation of her private life and has had to modify her behaviour. Flamer-Caldera brought her case to the committee and claimed that the criminalisation of female-same sex sexual activity and the concomitant potential for arrest and prosecution amount to discrimination on the grounds of gender and sexual orientation, thus violating her right to non-discrimination.” Committee Member Hiroko Akizuki has said that the criminalisation of same-sex sexual activity meant that the discrimination and harassment of and the violence meted out to the LGBTI community in Sri Lanka will continue with impunity.


More News..