Regional Conference about the current situation of LGBTI rights: Support, protection, visibility

Sarajevo Open Centre invites you to participate in the Regional Conference about the current situation of LGBTI rights. The conference is called Support, Protection, Visibility and it will be held on Friday, 13.10.2017.

Respect and protection for LGBTI rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina are on extremely low level. In addition to this information, ILGA-Europe’s annual report graded Bosnia and Herzegovina’s institutional and legal framework with 31%. Other countries of the region got higher grades – Croatia (62%), Montenegro (39%), Albania (33%), except Serbia (30%), Kosovo (30%) and Macedonia (16%).

Hate speech, discrimination and violence against LGBTI community are on the rise, although certain advancements of legal and public frameworks for protection of LGBTI rights lately exist. The fear of violence and discrimination are present daily and significant changes are not yet visible.

The existent social – dominant heteronomous and patriarchal – context, with significant presence of homophobia, intolerance, discrimination and violence against LGBTI persons, together with undeveloped institutional mechanisam for protection of LGBTI persons make their lives more complicated. In that regard, the life and the needs of LGBTI people differ from daily lives of people whose sexual or gender identity does not go out of the social and cultural framework.

The conference is based on a research among 366 LGBTI perosons in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The results will be introduced in the conference.

In the conference we want to examine the current situation and support for LGBTI persons. We will introduce support at the institutional level, and talk about the importance of institutional contribution and actions.

The obligatory topic will be about microregions which are important for the future community growth and inclusion of LGBTI people (family, education).

Pride parades and the activistic engagement through these forms of public gatherings which attract most media and social interest will be discussed in terms of increasing visibility and drawing attention to the isuess LGBTI people.

Agenda of the Conference.

If you are interested to participate in the conference send an e-mail to [email protected] . The deadline is 7.10.2017. Travel costs and accomodation for people from other cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina are limited.